The NHL purposefully changed the lottery due to all the whining about Edmonton getting multiple first overalls, it was only that change which ended up giving McDavid to the Oilers, so that is a really bad example.
MacKinnon was never deemed to be a generational talent, and most definately not considered to be on one level with Crosby while in juniors. Since Crosby only two prospect were put on his level as a prospect, McDavid and Bedard. Even Matthews wasn't.
The arguments you made for all these teams can be made in exactly the same way about pretty much every team. Plenty of teams haven't won in forever. There was nothing unusual about Colorado getting a first overall, and Chicago just came off a highly successful run that led to three Cup-wins so there was little reason to "help them".
A lottery is a lottery, it doesn't take into consideration whether teams "deserve" to get something, or whether a team had success in the recent past.
This. The human brain is great at recognizing patterns and connecting dots. So great that it has no problem connecting a bunch of dots that don't belong together, seeing a picture in what it's made, and assuming that because they see the picture it was intended to be there. The fact that there are legends, myths, folktales, or just cultural memes about the man/rabbit on the moon or that face on Mars or Jesus in a grilled cheese sandwich are a testament to that. It's why the Rorschach Test is a thing. We see patterns through the noise, but our brain will also trick us into thinking the noise itself
is a pattern.
If the Sharks had won last year there would've been a ton of theories about how this was a make-good for getting screwed out of Lindros, or the league helping one of its marquee expansion success stories out of a hole (with the less charitable interpretation being that they need to do that before the market craters and demonstrates that sunbelt expansion still only makes fickle fairweather fans thereby disproving the idea that expansion has really done anything to grow hockey into the fabric of anywhere that's not a traditional market), or that this was to reinvigorate the Battle of California as one of its new iconic rivalries or pick your conspiracy theory of choice.
The fact that like 30% of people responding to this poll think the lottery is rigged is hilarious. Even if half of those "yes" votes are sarcastic, joking "for the culture" type votes, that's still funny in a "I laugh so I don't think too hard about the larger consequences of people earnestly embracing the 'logic' necessary to believe that nonsense" sort of way.