The prize was Sidney Crosby, one of the greatest prospects anyone had seen since Wayne Gretzky. And the method to determine who got him, as best as then-Columbus Blue Jackets general manager Doug MacLean can recall, was hashed out over a few meetings as the NHL negotiated a new labor agreement to end the 2004-05 lockout.
MacLean's Blue Jackets had the fourth-worst record the year before the NHL shut down for a full season, and he and representatives for some of the other teams near the bottom of the standings _ the Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals and Chicago Blackhawks _ wanted to ensure they had a chance to land the generational, franchise-altering talent at the top of the 2005 draft.
The problem, MacLean recalls, is that everyone else wanted that chance, too.
"I would shoot my mouth off because where I was from and then somebody else would shoot their mouth off because, 'Hey, we didn't play, how do we know where we finished?' " MacLean said. "And I really had a hard time arguing with them. But I had to. I had no choice but to argue about it, but I knew I was _ when you're the bottom five or six teams, you're fighting an uphill battle when everybody else wants a crack at him. You knew you had no chance to win it, I guarantee you that."
The NHL has long held a lottery to determine who gets the first pick in its draft. The lottery is weighted so that the worse a team finishes, the better its chances are of landing the No. 1 pick.
When a lockout canceled the 2004-05 season, with no new standings to go on, the league came up with an alternate way to weigh its lottery.
Rather than take a single season into account, the NHL used composite records from its three previous full seasons _ 2001-02, 2002-03 and 2003-04 _ to slot teams into different categories. Teams with no playoff appearances in that time, and no No. 1 overall picks in the previous four drafts, were given three lottery balls. Teams with one playoff appearance or No. 1 pick were given two. And everyone else had one of the 48 balls in the hopper, or approximately a 2% chance of landing the greatest prospect of his generation.
"Half the league probably wanted everybody to have an equal chance and the other half wanted all the teams that didn't make the playoffs to have the only chances, weighted or unweighted," NHL commissioner Gary Bettman explained in a news conference announcing the end of the lockout in July 2005. "And if you look at the statistical odds of both scenarios, what we did is about in the middle. And so actually nobody was particularly thrilled, but everybody understood that on balance it was probably the fairest way to approach it."
With the coronavirus pandemic shuttering sports across North America, the 2005 NHL draft could serve as a blueprint for other professional sports in a worst-case scenario _ if COVID-19 forces their leagues to cancel an entire season.
The NBA and NHL played nearly full regular seasons before suspending play last month. Even if they don't hold postseasons later this summer, they could use those standings to formulate an order for drafts that are scheduled for later this year.
Major League Baseball has delayed its season, with no firm start date in sight. And while NFL officials said in a conference call last week they plan on having a traditional season this fall, the possibility exists, based on comments from government and health officials across the country, that no games will be played.
Both sports have drafts upcoming with the order of selection set long ago. The Detroit Lions pick third in this month's NFL draft and the Detroit Tigers have the first pick in June's MLB draft.
But using the NHL model, there's no guarantee either will pick as high again next year in the event the season is canceled.
The Penguins, one of four teams with three balls (and a 6.3% chance of landing the first pick), won the 2005 NHL draft lottery and have gone on to win three Stanley Cups with Crosby in the lineup. The Anaheim Ducks, one of 10 teams with two balls in the hopper (and a 4.2% chance of winning the drawing) got the second pick. And MacLean's Blue Jackets, with three balls, fell all the way to No. 6.
"I think it was fair," MacLean said Thursday. "If I would have been like you watching the draft, I would have thought it's fair. I just didn't like it for me and my organization, that's all."
