[Itse]

Personally I think tanking very much exists on the organizational level, and honestly GM's would be stupid to not do it to some extent.

However, I would be surprised if it was a very active effort, but more of a sidethought in things that are done anyway. Resting veterans with slight injuries is simply good resource management, because there will be a next season, and even with UFA's the risk of significant injury is just not worth it. And "giving young players a chance" does have some merit to it, whether as a means to reward some guys or to give some much needed experience to prospects. The fact that both of these things propably also give the team a better draft pick is something I would imagine that is not talked about, but is on a lot of people's minds, and propably does encourage to do both things even more.

However, that's not really the problem to me. What I hate is the situation that winning can be significantly harmful to a sports team. It's totally messed up that a fan base is on each others throats because they can't decide whether they actually want to win games.

It's totally messed up that a Flames fan can have a hard time deciding whether he wants us to finish above or below the Oilers. It serves to suck out excitement over the most basic goal in sports; winning.

This is why the current draft system is a terrible system.

This is why many Euro leagues have the relegation system; to ensure that teams don't stop playing halfway through the system.

The draft could be used as a means to make every game worth winning for a team; give the 1st pick to the first team out of the playoffs and go down the standings from there, (but reverse the picks for the playoff teams). With a different draft system, every team could be fighting tooth and nail for every point thoughout the whole of the season. As it should be in sports.

EDIT: Or just randomly hand out the first 14 picks to the last 14 teams. Just have anything but a system that rewards losing.