Quote:
Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina
They didn't tank for Crosby. They won the league wide lottery. Luck is not a strategy.
(not disagreeing with some of your broader points including the arguments being too binary, just noting that Crosby wasn't the result of tanking at all. It was the result of pure luck)
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Wasnt it partially because of tanking though? If I remember correctly, every team started with the same amount of lottery balls, and then they took out balls for each team based on recent 1st overalls (Caps drafted 1st the previous year), as well as for recent playoff berths?
edit:
"The league conferred the best odds - three lottery balls in the draw - to the four teams that hadn't reached the last three postseasons or won any of the past four lotteries: Pittsburgh, Buffalo, Columbus, and the Rangers. (The Blue Jackets and Penguins drafted No. 1 in 2002 and 2003, respectively, but only after Florida earned and traded both picks.) Ten teams received two balls each for making one of those postseasons or winning one of those lotteries. The remainder of the league's clubs got a single ball apiece.
That distribution left Pittsburgh with a mere 6.25% (1-in-16) chance to earn the top selection, scarcely exceeding most other teams' odds of 2.08% (1-in-48) and undermining the belief of cynics and conspiracy theorists that the NHL rigged the lottery to save the Penguins from bankruptcy. Fortune smiled on Pittsburgh that July, while the Blue Jackets landed at sixth overall and the Sabres and Rangers fell out of the top 10."