Daly confirms NHL working on changing draft lottery

It appears the NHL's current draft lottery system will undergo more tweaks in the near future.

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirmed Thursday that the league is working on changing the draft lottery, which will be discussed with the Board of Governors when the time is right, reports The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun.

"There are a lot of people around the league that simply felt that a team like (the) Detroit (Red Wings), undergoing a real rebuild, 23 points behind the 30th-place team last year, should not have been picking fourth," LeBrun said on Thursday's edition of TSN's "Insider Trading."

In October, a number of the league's general managers reportedly called on the league to increase the odds of winning the draft lottery for the teams that finish lowest in the standings.

The NHL introduced a weighted lottery system beginning in 2015 to discourage tanking. Since then, the last-place team has chosen first overall twice: the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2016 and the Buffalo Sabres in 2018.

The league has made small tweaks since, giving the bottom-ranked teams higher odds of moving down and other lottery clubs better chances of moving into the top three.

Daly didn't divulge what changes the league is considering.

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