Buffalo Sabres Unlikely To Win Draft Lottery
With how the NHL standings are at this moment, the Buffalo Sabres are unlikely to win the NHL draft lottery.
Entering NHL game play on March 22, the Buffalo Sabres are one of 14 teams eligible to win the draft lottery.
Each team has a unique chance at winning, from the Edmonton Oilers, who currently have a 20 percent chance of winning as the worst team in the league, to the Detroit Red Wings, who have a small, but still existent, one percent chance.
Right now, the Buffalo Sabres sit right around the middle, with a 6.5 percent chance of winning the draft lottery.
It’s certainly not impossible — but it’s also not very likely, either.
As I’ve done in the past, I ran the NHL Draft Lottery Simulator. Then I ran it again, and again.
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After 10 tries, Buffalo still hadn’t won, not even once. Edmonton had won it three times, while Calgary had two wins.
Vancouver, Winnipeg, Minnesota and Montreal had each ended up with the top pick once.
Meanwhile, the Buffalo Sabres ended up with only one pick in the top three, but mostly ended up picking seventh or eighth. They once ended up with a ninth-overall selection.
So I went ahead and did ten more simulations.
Once again…. the Buffalo Sabres didn’t win, not even once. This time, the Sabres ended up with two picks in the top three – both second-overall selections.
Somehow, the odds were in their favor for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who won five of those ten simulations to get the first-overall pick.
At this point, it starts to feel pretty unlikely that the Buffalo Sabres could win the draft lottery.
And then you go ahead and run simulation #21…. and who comes out on top, but the Buffalo Sabres.
Two more simulations, and you’ve got another top pick for the Sabres. A few more, and another top pick.
Okay, so maybe it’s not so impossible after all — but it still doesn’t make it likely that Buffalo will win.
In all this time around, I ran the draft lottery simulator 50 times.
The Sabres ended up with the first-overall pick just four times, and once picked as low as 10th overall.
Not that 10th overall is anything to raise your nose at, of course. Just look at a guy like Valeri Nichushkin, Magnus Paajarvi-Svensson or Dylan McIlrath. Of course, Cody Hodgson was once-upon-a-time a 10th overall pick, too.
I guess if nothing else, my point is this: while there’s still a chance the Buffalo Sabres could win the draft lottery, at this point… I wouldn’t get anyone’s hopes up.
There are still nine games left in the season and anything can happen between now and the end of the season, as teams fluctuate and pieces move around, but with the way things stand right now, the Buffalo Sabres may not end up with another top-three draft pick, or that coveted first-overall selection.