For most of the second half of the season, the Devils faced steep odds of completing their miracle run and actually making the playoffs. If you did the math on it, and judging by what teams in front of them were on pace for, most of the time their chances of being in that select group of eight teams in the East who battle to win the Stanley Cup, were lower than 4%.
Tuesday night, as a result of being one of fourteen non-playoff teams, the Devils were put into a draft lottery to determine the first round draft order of the fourteen teams. The Devils entered the draft lottery as the eighth pick. In the lottery, teams can only move up a possible four spots from where they were seeded upon completion of the NHL season. As such, only teams seeded 1-5 can actually be awarded the #1 pick in the draft, however any team of the fourteen can actually win the lottery.
With representatives from the bottom five teams on hand, hoping the lottery balls would fall their way and they and their fans would be awarded the #1 pick, representing perhaps a small ray of sunshine after 82 games of rain, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly began reading off the order of the teams who would be picking top five in the draft. Perhaps fittingly, facing 3.6% odds, the Devils were revealed as the #4 pick in the first round of the 2011 NHL Entry Draft, meaning that they had won the draft lottery. For the first time since 1999 a team outside of the top 5 had been revealed as the winner. This also meant that teams ranked 4-7 going into the draft lottery, were bumped back one spot.
While many in the media and hockey fans alike are viewing this as a fitting reward for a team that never concerned itself with trying to "tank" in order to have a better spot in the draft, and never lost it's desire to accomplish what was perhaps the impossible, Lou Lamoriello stayed steadfast in his judgement that this was not a celebratory event for the franchise.
“We would rather not be in this position, but being in it right now it should make our scouts feel happy and allow them to get a better player than they would have gotten at eighth. I can’t say it’s exciting to be in this position, it’s unfortunate, but we’ll accept it at this point.”
http://blogs.northjersey.com/blogs/fireice/
For sure, look no further than New Jersey's GM to determine where the Devils consistent focus on one goal stems from.
The speculation will now begin on who may be available to the Devils with their 4th overall pick. Long been considered to be without a clear cut top talent, this draft is believed to rather have a group of four prospects, and some feel even as much as six who could very well be the most talented player in the draft. The Devils are now comfortably seeded in a spot to pick one of those top players. At least among Devils fans, the excitement and debate will only grow from now until the Draft on June 24th.
In the weeks to come, TheDevsDomain will go in depth on all prospects who may have the distinction of having their name called by the New Jersey Devils at the Draft.
