I've said it once and I'll say it again.
Give the team with the most points and DIDN'T make the playoffs the first selection in the draft. If your team just barely misses the playoffs, congratulations, you might now have a superstar to help you become a contender. Last overall gets 14th pick, then the playoff teams get to pick.
Yes, this makes it so teams at the bottom don't improve as much but they need to suck it up and try to do better the next year. The draft system is the only thing I know of that rewards failure in life. I don't know of anything else which gives you something better the worse you perform. It doesn't happen in life, why should it happen with the draft lottery?
The thing I don't like about the current draft system is it puts currently winning and a long term winning strategy at odds with one another. If your team sucks, and you win more than the other losers, it's not a good long term winning strategy because you lose out on a high draft pick. A team adopting a long term winning strategy by losing now and drafting high means they don't want to win while rebuilding.
This gives the teams who try to make the playoffs a consolation prize if they don't make it, and teams who are chronically bad a reason to try and improve. The worst team one year, if they go from 30th overall to 26th overall, still move up the draft order. (From 14th pick to 10th pick, which isn't that bad.) The team that barely missed the playoffs, having a good pick, if the pick contributes right away, should improve enough that the team won't miss the playoffs the following year, so you also eliminate teams have two or three first overall picks in a row. (Though if a team barely missed the playoffs two years in a row, it could still happen.)
I'd rather reward teams that try and fall short than perpetual losers who tank and call that a "rebuilding plan".
I am also sick of some fans cheering for a loss so the team gets a better draft pick. At no point should and hockey team or the NHL EVER encourage fans to hope their team loses. It's counter to what sports is about.
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