MINNESOTA WILD TO PARTICIPATE IN NHL ENTRY DRAFT DRAWING
[May 26, 2000] --
The National Hockey League (NHL) announced today that the 2000 NHL Entry Draft Drawing to determine the order of selection for the first round of this year's Entry Draft will take place on June 1st.
The drawing will consist of 14 teams, including the two expansion teams (Minnesota and Columbus) and the 12 NHL teams that did not qualify for the playoffs. Each team will be allotted a certain percentage of the number combinations that can occur when the numbered balls are drawn. The percentage is determined by ascending order of team records, with the team posting the lowest winning percentage receiving the highest percentage of combinations. However, the two expansion teams will each receive the equivalent of the second-highest chance of winning by virtue of an equal percentage of combinations. The percentages and drawing order are listed on the following page.
The drawing procedure will consist of four balls numbered 1 to 14 drawn from the ball machine. There are exactly 1,001 possible combinations when drawing 4 balls out of 14, without regard to order. Because the team winning the drawing may not move up more than four positions in the draft order, only the three teams with the lowest points totals and the two expansion teams (or the team that obtains one of the picks in a trade) will have the chance to draw the first overall selection. The drawing involves a greater likelihood (25.0%) that the team finishing in last place overall will pick first, but that team will in no case pick lower than second overall, and has an overall 48.2 % chance of remaining in the first selection position.
While Minnesota and Columbus will have the same chance of winning, there will be no designation as to which team receives the two sets of expansion team combinations. The expansion team combinations will be designated as Expansion 1 and Expansion 2. Once the drawing is over and the draft order is determined, a coin toss will occur to establish which team has priority in choosing between Entry Draft priority and Expansion Draft priority. The coin toss winner will have the option of either: (a) priority of selection in the NHL Entry Draft or (b) priority of selection in the NHL Expansion Draft.
DRAWING ODDS
TEAM COMBINATIONS PERCENTAGE 1. Atlanta Thrashers 250 25.0 % 2. Minnesota Wild 146 14.6 % Columbus Blue Jackets 146 14.6 % 4. Tampa Bay Lightning 146 14.6 % 5. New York Islanders 80 8.0 % 6. Nashville Predators 62 6.2 % 7. Boston Bruins 47 4.7 % 8. Tampa Bay (from NY Rangers) 36 3.6 % 9. Calgary Flames 27 2.7 % 10. Chicago Blackhawks 21 2.1 % 11. Chicago (from Vancouver) 15 1.5 % 12. Mighty Ducks of Anaheim 11 1.1 % 13. Montreal Canadiens 8 0.8 % 14. Carolina Hurricanes 5 0.5 %