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Originally Posted by troutman
Can you explain why? You have great disdain for teams "tanking", and a system like these go a long way to fixing that.
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Because watching a bunch of also-rans play a glorified exhibition schedule under the shadow of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is not remotely compelling. Nobody - except possibly for Buffalo and Edmonton - actually plays to draft first overall.
People get mad at paying regular price for pre-season games. I don't see this as being any different.
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I can see owners being in favor of it - extra gates, and like playoffs, the players are not paid past the regular season.
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While the players get their cut through the CBA's revenue system anyway, I can see the NHLPA strongly opposing this unless they do get paid for these games - and that would open the door to demanding pay for playoff games too. But yes, the owners would certainly support nearly anything that drives up revenue.
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If your team has nothing to play for since January, at least you have some kind of meaningful games to look forward to. A little something for fans of struggling teams. Speaking only for myself, I am excited about this concept.
I suspect your opinion has something to do with honor or tradition or concern about cost?
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No, it has to do with the fact that the games are still largely meaningless. Also, much like the wheel system, the fake playoff system punishes the teams the draft is meant to help. The 17th, 18th, 19th best teams are more likely to win these playoffs than 30th, 29th, 28th, teams.
We all want to eliminate things like what the Oilers have done, but systems like this only perpetuate scenarios where teams like them rarely get top picks, which therefore cripples their ability to get better through the draft.
I don't like tanking, but I think the league has taken reasonable steps to mitigate it - the odds of the worst team drafting first overall is now barely 40% what it used to be, and with the top three picks being chosen by lottery starting next year, the usefulness of tanking will be seriously degraded without crippling the worst teams' chances of improving via the draft since they will generally be picking top 5.