I honestly don't even care about the lottery this year. Last year was a different story. You had 3 primo guys to pick from in the top 3. This year I'm just not hyped on any of the defensemen I've kept my eyes on. If it's not first overall then to me, there's like 6 guys that are more or less the same quality. And I can just see this team dropping one or two spots.
If wins start shifting things mentally/emotionally for this group, I'm all for it.
Yep, I suppose moving one direction or the other would change the odds at winning the lottery, but if we don't... then I could easily see where we end up not mattering, i. e. we would take the same guy at 3 as we would at 5 or 6.
So I haven't paid much attention to where we are in the standings. This year, like you said, isn't the same as last, where it was critical we ended up in the top 3. This year, it's 1 or whatever.