NHL Draft Lottery 2012: Edmonton Oilers Getting Top Pick Proves Overhaul Needed

Despite only having the second-best chance to nab the No. 1 overall pick in Tuesday night's NHL draft lottery, the Edmonton Oilers defied the odds by winning the lottery and garnering the top selection for the third consecutive season.

As good as that is for the Oilers and their fans, it sets a bad precedent for the league.

Although the Oilers have yet to convert their immense talent into tangible improvement, their cupboard appears to be stocked for many years to come. In all likelihood Edmonton is going to take elite Russian forward Nail Yakupov this season and add him to their past two No. 1 overall picks in Ryan Nugent-Hopkins and Taylor Hall.

On top of that, the Oilers have gotten other talented forwards like Magnus Paajarvi, Sam Gagner and perhaps their best player in Jordan Eberle in the first round over the past several years. While you could say that the Oilers have simply drafted well, they have also been incredibly fortunate in that they have gotten such high picks.

In the two previous seasons the Oilers deserved to get the top pick since they were clearly the worst team in the league, but that distinction belonged to the Columbus Blue Jackets this year. The Oilers were very lucky to win the lottery this year (they had an 18.8 percent chance), and because of that they will have the best young corps of forwards in the league despite doing nothing to earn it.

I would never suggest that the NHL would do something as despicable as fixing a lottery, but what the Oilers are currently going through is quite similar to the Pittsburgh Penguins' system. The Pens were awful for several years heading into the lockout, resulting in a bunch of No. 1 overall and high picks. This resulted in picks like Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Jordan Staal, Marc-Andre Fleury and others.

While you can't yet compare the Oilers' haul to Crosby, Malkin and the like since they have already established themselves as elite NHL players, the Oilers have the possibility of getting best player in the draft for three consecutive seasons, and that gives them a huge advantage over their competition.

Obviously Edmonton needs to improve its defense and goaltending before it can be a true contender, but if all of those forwards develop like they're supposed to, then that firepower can cover up for a lot of defensive deficiencies. Just like the Penguins, who eventually won a Stanley Cup, the Oilers have a bright future by virtue of being terrible.

The way drafts work in every major American sport is that the worst team generally gets the top pick. Save for this year, that has been true of the Oilers, so I didn't have a major problem with them getting so many high picks until Tuesday night.

Edmonton winning yet another lottery really opened my eyes and proved that a lottery overhaul is needed.

It's quite interesting that the teams that dominated the late 1980s and early 1990s, the Oilers and Penguins, are the teams that have benefited most from the lottery system. Both had cornerstone players in Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux respectively, and both had fallen upon hard times. Things turned around quickly for the Pens and it's only a matter of time for the Oilers.

There isn't a lot that can be done with the lottery since it wouldn't really be fair to do something drastic such as giving the first team outside the playoffs the top pick since they're already close to contention to begin with. The terrible teams are the ones that need the high picks, but there is a very simple way to ensure that things are fair.

Unlike any other sport, hockey consistently produces sure-fire stars from the No. 1 draft slot. There is going to be the occasional bust, but it isn't as prominent as it is in football, basketball and baseball. Since 2001, the only top overall pick in the NHL draft that isn't already a star or on track to become a star is Colorado Avalanche defenseman Erik Johnson, but at least he's a useful player.

No. 2 picks and beyond can still become stars, but it's much more of a crapshoot than No. 1. Because of that, the logical thing to do is to not allow a team to have the top pick in consecutive years. That way a team's chances of getting two generational talents in a row is lessened and the benefits of "tanking" a season are lessened as well.

Even if management prefers it, players don't have the mentality to tank a season, but if the roster isn't good enough then it inevitably happens. That was the case with the Penguins and it has been the case for the Oilers.

Edmonton deserves a high pick this season, but three top overall selections in a row is ridiculous. Disqualifying teams from getting the No. 1 pick in consecutive years or more than once in three years is fair and logical, and it is something that the league must address if it wants to stop the Penguins' model from taking over the league.