Another week means it’s time for another NHL draft lottery simulation. How has the last week changed the chances for the Buffalo Sabres? Could Buffalo still get the chance to pick first-overall in the 2016 NHL Draft?
As we’ve done in the past, we’ll run the simulation 100 times and see how our results turn out.
Heading into today’s simulation, the Edmonton Oilers have the best chance at the first pick, with a 20% shot at it.
Edmonton has 55 points in 65 games this season, including the two points the Oilers notched in their overtime win against the Buffalo Sabres on March 1.
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Toronto is next with a 13.5 percent chance, then Calgary (11.5) and Winnipeg (9.5). Toronto has 52 points in 61 games this season, while Calgary has 56 in 63. Winnipeg has 56 in 62.
That being said: there’s a good chance a Canadian team will get the first-overall selection.
The Buffalo Sabres are next with an 8.5 percent chance at the first-overall selection.
This season, the Sabres have put up 58 points in 64 games, earning 45.31 percent of points available.
Other teams in the running for this week’s draft lottery: Columbus, Arizona, Vancouver, Montreal, Carolina, Colorado, Ottawa, New Jersey and Philadelphia.
The Flyers have the smallest chance – just 1% – at the first-overall pick of the teams involved.
Without further ado — here we go! As in the past weeks, we’re using NHLLotterySimulator.com.
Well, this is less than ideal. In no world does any Sabres fan want to see the Toronto Maple Leafs get the first overall pick and (likely) Auston Matthews.
Nope, no way, no thanks. Let’s try it again.
Now, that’s more like it! It took just two runs of the NHL draft simulator to get the Buffalo Sabres that coveted first-overall pick.
The Habs finish with the third pick, while Toronto gets fifth.
One more time…
Blech. With this run, the Buffalo Sabres wind up with the sixth-overall pick. Not the best, but certainly not the worst, I suppose.
Also: hallelujah to that first-overall pick NOT going to Toronto. Although do we really need to see the Oilers in the top three again?
Note how in two of the first three simulations, all three top teams were Canadian. It’s very likely that those Canadian teams will get at least one, if not two or three, of the top picks this year.
I went ahead and ran the simulator 97 more times, and here are the results:
The Edmonton Oilers, as expected, ended up with the first-overall selection 17 times, the most of any team. They finished in the top three a total of 59 times.
Winnipeg got the first-overall pick 14 times, with Toronto picking it up 12 times.
Buffalo chose first overall 11 times; second 10 times and third 7 times. This is a little different from last week’s simulation, when the Buffalo Sabres got 15 first-overall picks. This change makes sense, since Buffalo’s chance at the first-overall selection went down one percent from last week.
The Sabres had 28 top-three picks this week, compared to 36 last week.
This week, the Buffalo Sabres also ended up with 12 5th-overall picks, 37 6th-overall picks, 19 7th-overalls and four 8th-overall picks.
That’s another change from last week, when the lowest the Sabres could pick was seventh. They now can pick as low as eighth.
In 27 simulations, the top three picks all went to Canadian teams. This is actually significantly less than last week, when 68/100 simulations had all three top picks go to Canadian teams.
Like last week, just one of the 100 simulations did not have a Canadian team in the top three.
Next: Sabres March Schedule Breakdown
It’s interesting to see how things have changed over the last week, and how some teams now have a better chance at the top pick, while others have a lesser chance (like the Buffalo Sabres.) How different will things be next week when we check in with the NHL draft lottery simulator?