At least tanking in the NHL is not as bad as it is in the NBA. The way those teams gut their roster and mail it in is atrocious.
The point of the draft is to allocate talent to move the league towards parity - poor teams get first crack at best talents. It is then up to that team's management/coaching/players to improve and make playoffs/contend for the cup.
If the aim of the draft is talent allocation to weaker teams, then the system cannot change too much, but what needs to be dealt with is tanking. It is a grey area, and hard to enforce, as you do not want to take away the ability of declining teams to get value for their remaining quality assets (since this dilutes the talent pool in the playoffs), but at the same time, you want teams to play for a win every time.
Personally, if the penalty for winning late in the season is a lesser chance of #1 overall, and perhaps a slightly lower ranked prospect, but the team maintains a culture of competitiveness and desire to win, which would be needed to return to contention, I would take winning over tanking. Find a clear way to identify teams intending to tank and appropriate penalties - it is much harder than it sounds.
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