[Calgary4LIfe]

Originally Posted by FlamesAddiction

What they want the draft to do:

• Distribute the best young talent to the worst teams.
• Create parity.

What the draft does not do:

• Create parity.

What the draft actually does:

• Rewards failure and promotes tanking.
• Burdens the best young talent by confining them to teams the fail to help them grow.
• Keeps mediocre teams mediocre.
• Prevents good teams from drafting the best players, promoting a decline.

The way I see it, there are way fewer pros than cons with the current (and proposed) system. The only real benefit is that it gives fans of bad teams a silver lining, but this is probably outweighed by the frustration of other fans whose teams have good enough management to stay somewhat competitive, but never get the same benefit from the draft.

I actually disagree with your assessment here.

What the draft does not do:

• Create parity.

The NHL does achieve parity through the draft. For instance, Chicago, Detroit (remember, they sucked for a long time until they managed to turn themselves around through the draft initially), Pittsburgh, San Jose, Boston, Anaheim, Vancouver, Ottawa, LA, etc. - teams who have had top-end picks and went on to experience either short or continual success in the league. Where would these teams be without the draft (and strong management)? That is parity right there. Remember Jarome's NMC? He picked 4 teams that were widely thought of as the best 4 teams to win a championship (and oddly enough, the exact 4 teams to make it to the respective conference finals that year), and yet they all had bottom 5 finishes not that long ago in their history. If that isn't an example of parity, I don't know what is. Even a long-time NHL player can't pick the winner, even though he knows the players and actually plays games against these teams.

Rewards failure and promotes tanking.

Let me use an analogy here. You say that the NHL rewards failure. I don't look at it quite like a reward. I look it more as 'social assistance'. Think about someone who has had a run of bad luck, or some poor decision making when it comes to investments, or some other factor. Suddenly that person finds themselves out of a job and no income. Welfare or other social assistance programs helps put that person back on his feet so that person can be self-sustainable and hopefully successful. Is a welfare check a 'reward' here? I wouldn't classify it as such. Giving top picks to bottom teams is the easiest way to address parity in the league for the long term. There are many, many examples of this working extremely well in the NHL. The hope is that a team - with some help - will become a successful franchise. Without having strong picks in a draft, how do you suppose an organization can become successful in the future? What better way to help a franchise along than by providing an organization with the best of the incoming talent?

Now promoting tanking - I don't agree with it (not really anyways). Edmonton is really a standout from the list of teams that have finished in the lottery due to its' horrible mismanagement - both personnel decisions and their drafting and development program. I recall in the off-season that Edmonton made moves to actually become better - but most felt it just wasn't enough to become a playoff team. Tanking though? I don't buy it. Nobody thought Edmonton was tanking this year - at least not until they traded Perron. However, an organization comes to a point where they have to decide what it has to do. Buffalo, for instance, was labeled as the McDavid favorite. That hasn't changed much. However, did they really tank, or did they merely just make the moves that they really needed to? They moved a lot of expiring contracts last year - contracts that would have more than likely walked for nothing in the off-season. They added some surprisingly good FA in the off-season - Moulson was a coveted free-agent after-all. Would you say that they would be closer to a championship by trading their youth away for experienced NHL players and start trying to compete for the cup now? I don't think so. I think it would hurt them down the road, and they were a team that was 'gunning for it' right up until they finished near the bottom and had to make wholesale changes and enter into a rebuild.

There is a difference between outright tanking and legitimately rebuilding. It is hard to argue that Pittsburgh didn't tank for Lemieux. It is difficult to argue that Edmonton has been tanking when they have been a salary-cap team. The Perron move was the first move I can honestly say was in the 'tanking' realm. I can't think of another tanking example - there may be more, but I really can't think of any, and I think that says a lot about how the draft is working.

Burdens the best young talent by confining them to teams the fail to help them grow.

Crosby, Toews, Stamkos, Kopitar, Doughty, Kane, Ovechkin, Malkin, Seguin, and a plethora of other top-end picks disagree with this statement.

Keeps mediocre teams mediocre

List these 'mediocre' teams. Off the top of my head, I would list Columbus, Florida, Minnesota, Toronto, Ottawa, Philadelphia, Nashville, Arizona. I will argue that these teams are a product of one or more of the following: poor management, internal caps, or teams on the rise/decline.

Now think of it this way. Break the draft into 3 segments: Bottom teams, middle teams (mediocre) and top teams. The draft provides dispersal of talent inversely for the top and bottom, but should provide the 'middling' talent to the 'middling' teams. Does this make sense? Maybe not at once, but think of it this way. Top teams SHOULD see a reduction in their talent pool over the years, so they SHOULD fall into middling territory. Bottom teams should enter into middling territory as their prospect pool fills and starts entering the NHL. The middling teams SHOULD be teams that are transitioning between the top and the bottom, right? Their "mediocre" talent that they are drafting for their "mediocre" team should be providing them with the depth they need to make a good run at the cup (provided that they are a team on the rise) or help to soften the blow and create a faster turnaround from having a 'bad' year by providing depth in the organization.

I understand what you are saying, but the mediocre teams you talk about are mediocre not because of the draft, but usually because of internal cap constraints and poor management more than mediocre draft selections.

Prevents good teams from drafting the best players, promoting a decline.

Chicago, Detroit, Pittsburgh, San Jose, and a number of other teams *somewhat* disagree with you here. I do think that the decline is intentional, but not guaranteed. However, isn't that parity? Isn't the draft and the cap itself designed to keep the top teams from continually being the top teams? By helping the bottom teams, and by hurting the top teams (in my opinion, not hurting but rather making it more difficult), this promotes parity, no?

This point essentially argues against your other point that the draft does not create parity.

Is it a perfect system? No, absolutely not, and this is why the NHL has been tinkering with it. However, the worst possible thing to do would be to remove the high talent in the draft away from the poor performing teams and award them to the mediocre and top teams - the bottom teams would never have a chance to improve, would they?