Shanahan said he hopes the result Saturday offered some excitement and even more hope for Leafs Nation.
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With a 20-percent chance of winning the lottery on Saturday night, the Maple Leafs became the first last-place team to retain the position in the draft order since the Edmonton Oilers in 2010.
That puts the Maple Leafs in the company of Arizona, Columbus, Minnesota, Nashville, San Jose and Winnipeg as the only franchises that haven’t made it to a final in the past 49 years.
No. 13 was the only ball left that could deliver the No. 1 pick to Toronto.
Another dozen teams from the expansion era have won a league championship, led by four titles each for the New York Islanders and Edmonton Oilers.
For the first time ever, all 14 teams that missed the Stanley Cup Playoffs were eligible for a top-three pick.
Shanahan could not have engineered this any better. It’s out of your control, stuff like that. There will be a little less pain next year.
Brendan Shanahan’s job of rebuilding the Toronto Maple Leafs got a big boost after the last-place team won the National Hockey League draft lottery, putting it in a position to take US center Auston Matthews with the first pick.
After all, it was a process that will have a profound impact not just on the Toronto Maple Leafs – who ended up with the first overall pick – but on Matthews and his family, assuming the Leafs call Matthews’ name at the draft in Buffalo on June 24. When the Oilers tore down the roster and started over, Taylor Hall was the first key part of the rebuild, and while Edmonton continued to land high draft picks, the front office failed dramatically to complement those precious talents with a strong supporting cast.
Matthews told TSN he recognized Toronto as “a hockey mecca” and said he looked forward to working with coach Mike Babcock. And while McDavid stands in a class by himself, Toronto gets a whale of a prize a year later in a franchise No. 1 center, if indeed they pick Matthews – which you have to assume they will. There was some controversy with how the Leafs wound up in 30th, given their trade patterns, the decision to shut down injured players and move up kids from the Marlies. He can join William Nylander, Mitch Marner, and Morgan Rielly as the core of the future. So we asked Shanahan: Does drafting first overall validate all the loses, all the frustration? “That’s really when we’re going to feel that the work we’ve done was done well”.
“This is not going to be a saviour”. It’s not the way the game is played. “Sometimes, you speed up the development but not to the proper hierarchy (on the team)”. The Calgary Flames have an 8.5 per cent chance of picking first, while the Winnipeg Jets have a 7.5 per cent chance and the Ottawa Senators have a 2.5 per cent chance of winning.
It will be the first time since 2009 the Canes will pick outside the top 12 in the first round.
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Although Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan would not reveal who his team will choose at the draft in Buffalo on June 24, American teenager center Auston Matthews, is the consensus top pick, followed by Finnish forwards Patrik Laine and Jesse Puljujarvi. The lottery is also weighted to give weaker teams a better chance of winning the draws for the second- and third-overall picks.
