It is in the NHL's best interest to have the Leafs win the draft lottery.

[bustaheims]

but i balance that against the fact that had crosby gone somewhere like nashville that he might not have mattered as much ... does nash matter as much in columbus as much as he might in detroit?...  maybe crosby is bigger than that ..but i'm not sure his impact is the same no matter where he goes..though i guess the nhl would be hoping against hope that it would be.

Sorry, but, that's garbage. The Crosby hype machine was in overdrive well before he was even drafted. He was destined to a superstar and one of the faces of the league regardless of where he ended up.

 

[L K]

I think it is absolutely true that without Crosby the Penguins were in real danger of relocation but  I think Crosby would have meant just as much to say Atlanta, or Phoenix, or even a place like LA/San Jose/Florida/etc.

And the best player in the league would get marketed as such regardless of where he played.  I think the only danger would have been him being on a Canadian team where US fans couldn't chant USA USA USA when he scored.

 

[Kin]

but i balance that against the fact that had crosby gone somewhere like nashville that he might not have mattered as much

I was reading articles about Sidney Crosby in Sports Illustrated when he was 15 years old. The NHL knew exactly what they had. He was going to be a huge deal wherever he was.

does nash matter as much in columbus as much as he might in detroit?...

Probably not. That's because Columbus is the 45th biggest US media market and Detroit is the 10th. It's in the best interest of the league to put their star attractions, not that Nash is a pre-eminent star attraction, in their biggest media markets which, again, is why it wouldn't make sense to rig the lottery for Pittsburgh. 

  maybe crosby is bigger than that ..but i'm not sure his impact is the same no matter where he goes..though i guess the nhl would be hoping against hope that it would be.

That doesn't even make sense using your own internal logic. On the one hand you want us to think that the NHL had so much faith in Crosby that they'd steer him to Pittsburgh so he could single-handedly save the franchise and then on the other say that they didn't know the impact he could have had.