The NFL Draft had Peter King. The NBA Draft had Woj and his Bombs. And the NHL Draft, well, it was turned on its head by a man who now goes by "Bobby Margarita."
Yes, Thursday night again saw another professional sports league’s draft deviate from the script many had seemingly written in their heads weeks and months in advance.
With the first-overall pick, the Montreal Canadiens selected Juraj Slafkovsky, a Slovakian winger. In doing so, they passed over Shane Wright, a Canadian centre who was just one of a handful of players so skilled they were granted “exceptional” status, allowing them to play junior hockey at an even younger age.
Wright had long seemed destined to go first overall and his odds reflected that, opening as short as -8,000 at some online sportsbooks, which shows just how highly he was viewed by both bettors and scouts.
Meanwhile, Slafkovsky’s odds were typically floating somewhere in the region of +500 to +600, with FanDuel trader Steven DeMelo even telling Covers that they opened the left-winger at +1,500.
The stakes were high for books and bettors, as the market for the first-overall pick in a draft is a popular one. According to DeMelo, FanDuel expected the first-overall market would account for more than 65% of the total handle for the event.
Enter Bobby Margarita, a.k.a. Bob McKenzie, a longtime NHL insider whose draft rankings have been a reliable bellwether for the first-overall pick. On June 28, McKenzie’s final rankings dropped — with Slafkovsky atop the list.
It’s a photo finish for the No. 1 spot on TSN’s 2022 NHL Draft Final Ranking from @TSNBobMcKenzie and, by the slimmest of margins, it’s Juraj Slafkovsky over Shane Wright...
— TSN Hockey (@TSNHockey) June 28, 2022
The Final Top 90 and 10 Honourable Mentions: https://t.co/n8kTicQVAH#TSNHockey | #DraftCentre pic.twitter.com/OUCyGa3mmq
Bettors freaked out accordingly, and, after some hesitation, began smashing Slafkovsky, whose odds for first overall slipped to around +200. Phill Gray, head of trading operations at Sports Interaction, joked that the headline should be “McKenzie moves the line from his cottage.”
“Wright still remained the presumptive fave but bettors hit Slafkovsky all week turning the liability on to him,” Gray added in an email.
Slafkovský became the biggest liability for first overall at FanDuel as well, DeMelo said.
A similar situation had played out with April’s NFL Draft. Longtime league reporter Peter King dropped his mock draft on April 25, with Georgia’s Travon Walker ranked first overall, not Michigan’s Aidan Hutchinson, who had been the betting favorite to go first up to that point. The steam was turned on Walker, who then became the favorite and the eventual first-overall selection.
Still, earlier this week, Montreal Canadiens General Manager Kent Hughes injected further uncertainty into the NHL Draft equation. On Monday, Hughes told media members the team's decision about who they would take first overall was down not just to Wright and Slafkovsky, but also American center Logan Cooley.
Kent Hughes says decision is between Wright, Slafkovsky and Cooley.
— Eric Engels (@EricEngels) July 4, 2022
Now it was the turn of Cooley’s odds to take a ride. Depending where you looked, Cooley for first overall shortened from around +2,000 to below the +1000 mark.
“Cooley has ties to Canadiens GM Kent Hughes having played with his son (Jack Hughes, who’s also slated to go in the first couple rounds of this year’s draft),” FanDuel’s DeMelo noted to Covers before the draft.
So, with just days before Draft Night, there were now three live wires. Bettors were again facing another volatile market for wagering, just as they had with the NBA and NFL drafts earlier in the year.
Notoriously, the 2022 NBA Draft odds were rocked and rolled by the tweets and comments of one man: insider Adrian Wojnarowski.
In short: Woj, as he’s known, had tweeted on the morning of the NBA Draft, June 23, that it increasingly looked like Jabari Smith would be the pick at first overall, followed by Chet Holmgren, and then Paolo Banchero.
Yet, bettors had been pounding away at Banchero in the run-up to the draft, and Woj tweeted less than an hour before the selecting began that Banchero was “under serious consideration” to be first overall, which he ultimately was.
As I just reported on our NBA Draft Show on ESPN, Duke's Paolo Banchero has joined Auburn's Jabari Smith under serious consideration to be franchise's No. 1 overall pick, sources said. There's a real chance draft boards could get blown up at the top of the lottery.
— Adrian Wojnarowski (@wojespn) June 23, 2022
As for the NHL Draft, the plot began thickening again on Thursday.
ESPN hockey reporter Emily Kaplan tweeted in the morning that, despite Wright being viewed as a lock for first overall for years, there was "a growing sense" that the Canadiens, the holder of that pick, would take Slafkovsky instead.
Meanwhile, McKenzie, who had helped to gas up the Slafkovsky hype train, tweeted that, "anecdotally speaking," a lot of teams were convinced Montreal would take Wright first overall. With the buzz building around Wright and Slafkovsky, Cooley's first-overall odds lengthened.
Finally, just minutes before the pick was due, the dam broke, at least at one book, and Slafkovsky flipped to the favorite. At 7:21 p.m., self-described "Booze Mogul" Bobby Margarita tweeted two words: “Juraj Slafkovsky.”
What did we learn?
So, those are the broad strokes of yet more draft-related drama for bettors, bookies, and sports fans in general.
FanDuel’s DeMelo called the NHL Draft moves “shades” of what happened with the NBA Draft.
“What’s for certain while comparing the NHL Draft to the NFL/NBA Drafts is that today’s age of insiders, information, rumors, and leaks are all having significant implications on the betting markets,” he added.
Yet, DeMelo also said that Wright had "a good season," but not the dominant one many scouts and fans would have expected. And, for his part, Slafkovský had put together strong performances for the Slovakian national team at the 2022 Winter Olympics and the 2021 World Championships.
Whatever the result, it’s also becoming clear that wagering on drafts is becoming an increasingly popular thing, especially as legal sports betting expands across Canada and the United States.
“This year's [NHL] draft was really popular and we even saw a larger handle from last year,” said Pat Gregoire, country manager for Canada at Coolbet. “In terms of drafts, the NFL is still the biggest attraction when it comes to sports bettors but this year we saw the gap close a bit more. The NHL draft is more popular than the NBA draft for our bettors but I'm not sure if that's the Woj effect or gaining popularity for hockey bettors to get in on the action of the draft.”
SIA’s Gray said this year's NHL Draft didn't draw as much action as the NBA or NFL, but the event's handle was still the highest it's ever been for the operator. The heavy wagering on Slafkovský wound up being costly for the books as well, which were once again stung by draft bettors.
Likewise, DeMelo said FanDuel saw the most handle and volume of bets on the NHL Draft this year than ever before, which was likely helped by the operator launching online sports betting in Ontario in April.
"Juraj closed as the favorite at approximately -160 and was a big loser for the book," FanDuel said on Friday.
At any rate, with the excitement now over, bettors and books can stand down for a bit and wait for next year.
Unless, of course, they’ve got an edge for first overall in this month’s MLB Draft.
