NHL Draft Drawing to Be Conducted April 20

[VodkaFish]

NEW YORK - The National Hockey League Draft Drawing, a weighted lottery system to determine the order of selection for the first 14 picks of the 2006 Entry Draft, will take place Thursday, April 20, at 12 p.m., ET, at the NHL’s New York office.

The Draft Drawing will involve clubs that did not qualify for this season’s Stanley Cup Playoffs. The Draft Drawing result does not affect the draft order for the remainder of the first round and rounds two through seven.

The club selected in the Draft Drawing may not move up more than four positions in the draft order. Thus the only clubs with the opportunity to receive the first overall selection are the five clubs with the lowest regular-season point totals. No club can move down more than one position as a result of the Draft Drawing.

Under the weighted lottery system, the club with the fewest regular-season points, the St. Louis Blues, will have the greatest chance (25%) of winning the Draft Drawing and will pick no lower than second at the 2006 Entry Draft.

Fourteen balls, numbered 1-14, will be placed in a lottery machine and four will be expelled, forming a series of numbers. There are 1,001 numerical combinations possible, and one combination has been eliminated to make the odds equitable. A probability chart divides the possible combinations among the 14 participating clubs.

The four-digit series that results from the expulsion of the balls will be compared to the probability chart to determine the team to which that combination has been assigned. If the eliminated series is drawn, a 0.1% probability, the drawing will be re-held immediately.

After the club selected moves up, the balance of the first 14 draft selections are adjusted by one, with the appropriate clubs moving down one slot to accommodate the winner, if necessary.

The current percentage chance of being selected in the Draft Drawing is as follows, based on inverse order of finish among non-playoff clubs:

St. Louis	25.0%
Pittsburgh	18.8%
Chicago		14.2%
Washington	10.7%
Boston		8.1%
Columbus	6.2%
NY Islanders	4.7%
Phoenix		3.6%
Minnesota	2.7%
Florida		2.1%
Los Angeles	1.5%
Atlanta		1.1%
Toronto		0.8%
Vancouver	0.5%

The 2006 NHL Entry Draft will take place at General Motors Place in Vancouver on Saturday, June 24 at 3 p.m., Pacific time.

Results of Previous Draft Drawings

Year	Selected	Effect On Draft Order			Player Selected
1995	Los Angeles	Moved from 7th to 3rd			D Aki Berg
1996	Ottawa		Retained 1st selection			D Chris Phillips
1997	Boston		Retained 1st selection			C Joe Thornton
1998	Tampa Bay	Moved from 3rd to 1st via trades	C Vincent Lecavalier
1999	Chicago		Moved from 8th to 4th			RW Pavel Brendl *
2000	NY Islanders	Moved from 5th to 1st			G Rick DiPietro
2001	Atlanta		Moved from 3rd to 1st			LW Ilya Kovalchuk
2002	Florida		Moved from 3rd to 1st			LW Rick Nash **
2003	Florida		Moved from 4th to 1st			G Marc-Andre Fleury ***
2004	Washington	Moved from 3rd to 1st			LW Alexander Ovechkin
2005	Pittsburgh	n/a					C Sidney Crosby

* NY Rangers obtained Chicago's pick in a trade (via Vancouver and Tampa Bay). The Rangers selected RW Pavel Brendl fourth overall.

** Columbus obtained Florida's pick in a trade. The Blue Jackets selected LW Rick Nash first overall.

*** Pittsburgh obtained Florida's pick in a trade. The Penguins selected G Marc-Andre Fleury first overall.

[bustoff]

Hopefully this will be Pleau's last duty as the Blues GM.