Quote:
Originally Posted by troutman
I think that is a good point. Possibly though, a draft position tournament puts more pressure on owners to remove incompetent GMs sooner. Would the Oilers have kept Lowe and Company so long if top picks are "earned, never given"?
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The Oilers are actually a bad example in all of this because they have raised incompetence to an art form. Given Katz's hard-on for the 80s Oilers, the NHL could revoke all of their draft picks until he fires Lowe and MacTavish, and he'd probably still hold out.
For the rest of the league though, I guess one potential issue under this scenario is not removing incompetent management sooner, but removing competent management too soon. It takes time to rebuild a team and some franchises definitely would move backwards trying to rush a rebuild to the point of being mediocre enough to land that top pick.
Or, to be completely ironic, imagine if it was last year and the Flames were good enough to be a "contender" for the #1 pick but felt they needed to add a player to get there. Then, imagine we traded that undersized 4th rounder from Boston College for a pending UFA who can help the team with the immediate goal of getting the top pick. Wise move?