Report: Jim Devellano Responds to Draft Lottery Conspiracy Theory
The hockey world was all up in arms regarding the recent proposal to hold the 2020 NHL draft in early June instead of the end of the playoffs. Many are speculating that the NHL is attempting to rig the draft lottery to give the Red Wings the 1st overall pick, similar to the Penguins landing Sidney Crosby in 2005.
Red Wings vice President Jim Devellano decided to sound off on those conspiracy theorists, saying "To those people who say that, they don't know what they're talking about. ... We got screwed by the lottery. That's factual."
There are several issues regarding this statement, but the most blatant is that the Red Wings have not been screwed by the draft lottery more than any other team. They fell two spots in 2017 (7th to 9th), one spot in 2018 (5th to 6th), and two spots in 2019 (4th to 6th).
That's unfortunate for the organization, but it's a far cry from being totally screwed by the team. If they were truly screwed by the draft lottery, they would have managed to lose the 1st overall pick, and fall to 4th overall twice in three years (sorry Avs fans, but you got Makar and Byram out of it).
Moreover, the Red Wings were actually quite fortunate in the 2018 draft, being able to pick Filip Zadina due to Arizona and Montreal opting to draft centers over wingers. Couple that with the fact that the Red Wings chose to draft by position when choosing Moritz Seider, and it seems fair to assume they would have chosen Seider at 4th overall (given that he was the top-ranked RD).
2017 would have had little effect on the Red Wings had they remained in their current standing. The two players they missed were Casey Mittelstadt and Lias Andersson. One is in the AHL, the other is in Europe, and both have had their names swirling in trade rumors over the past year.
However, the main issue with this statement is its attempt to reason with this sketchy proposal by the NHL in the first place. He claims that critics who believe that the league is rigging the draft lottery in favor of the Red Wings have no idea what they're saying; and then giving the league a reason to (allegedly) fix the lottery to begin with. If his statement war truly intended to shut down any sort of backlash for this decision regarding the draft lottery, his statement completely backfired. All this statement did was encourage people to believe the Red Wings are being gifted Alexis Lafreniere.
This is a clear example of an executive opening their mouth when they didn't need to, and shouldn't have in the first place. I'm pretty confident management is going to have a talk with him, and make sure he doesn't talk to the media again before the draft results are set in stone.
Red Wings vice President Jim Devellano decided to sound off on those conspiracy theorists, saying "To those people who say that, they don't know what they're talking about. ... We got screwed by the lottery. That's factual."
There are several issues regarding this statement, but the most blatant is that the Red Wings have not been screwed by the draft lottery more than any other team. They fell two spots in 2017 (7th to 9th), one spot in 2018 (5th to 6th), and two spots in 2019 (4th to 6th).
That's unfortunate for the organization, but it's a far cry from being totally screwed by the team. If they were truly screwed by the draft lottery, they would have managed to lose the 1st overall pick, and fall to 4th overall twice in three years (sorry Avs fans, but you got Makar and Byram out of it).
Moreover, the Red Wings were actually quite fortunate in the 2018 draft, being able to pick Filip Zadina due to Arizona and Montreal opting to draft centers over wingers. Couple that with the fact that the Red Wings chose to draft by position when choosing Moritz Seider, and it seems fair to assume they would have chosen Seider at 4th overall (given that he was the top-ranked RD).
2017 would have had little effect on the Red Wings had they remained in their current standing. The two players they missed were Casey Mittelstadt and Lias Andersson. One is in the AHL, the other is in Europe, and both have had their names swirling in trade rumors over the past year.
However, the main issue with this statement is its attempt to reason with this sketchy proposal by the NHL in the first place. He claims that critics who believe that the league is rigging the draft lottery in favor of the Red Wings have no idea what they're saying; and then giving the league a reason to (allegedly) fix the lottery to begin with. If his statement war truly intended to shut down any sort of backlash for this decision regarding the draft lottery, his statement completely backfired. All this statement did was encourage people to believe the Red Wings are being gifted Alexis Lafreniere.
This is a clear example of an executive opening their mouth when they didn't need to, and shouldn't have in the first place. I'm pretty confident management is going to have a talk with him, and make sure he doesn't talk to the media again before the draft results are set in stone.
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