Discussion: How to fix the Draft Lottery

[stemit14]

A few things I think could improve the draft:

1. Increase the draft-eligible age to 19 instead of 18. This gives prospects a guaranteed extra year of development. Hopefully, this leads to improved drafting in general. Teams will have a better understanding of player trajectories. Also, teams who are finishing at the bottom of the league will get their NHL-ready players earlier after they have drafted them as they are likely closer to being impact-players when drafted. Might be difficult to implement this change as more players will start going to Europe to play for their draft year. Might consider some kind of “exceptional status” eligibility like they do in junior for some players - this would allow for some rare players to be drafted in their 18 year old season.

2. Have the top five picks all be lottery spots.

3. Start increasing lottery odds for teams that have not won draft lotteries but have missed the playoffs in recent years. Something like this: if a team has missed the playoffs in 4 of the previous 5 years and has not won a playoff round in that span and has not won a draft lottery spot in that span, their odds should increase to win a top 5 pick. Obviously this is a change targeted at giving the “mushy-middle” teams a better chance to win the draft and get top tier talent.

4. A team that picks 1st overall cannot pick 1st overall again for 4 years - the highest they can draft is 2nd overall. This only applies to their own pick… not a pick they trade for.

5. Teams can only pick in the top 5 a maximum of 3 times in consecutive years. On the 4th year, the highest they can pick is 6th overall.

6. Make the draft lottery after the playoffs. With everyone finished playing, teams might make trades at the draft lottery (see suggestion 7 below).

7. An interesting caveat with these pick restrictions would be that they are removed if teams trade the picks before the draft lottery. For example, if Chicago traded their first round pick next year before the draft lottery, it could become a 1st overall pick. But if they didn’t trade it, the highest that Chicago could pick is 6th overall because they already picked in the top 5 for 3 consecutive years. My hope with the restrictions being tied to the team rather than the pick would be that it incentivizes teams to trade picks for impact NHLers. If Chicago knew the highest they could draft by keeping their pick was 6th overall but they could trade it to someone and it could be a 1st overall pick for that team… wouldn’t that make Chicago more incentivized to trade that pick for help now? In this scenario, Chicago wants to sell the pick and multiple teams want to buy that pick especially since it would have a decent shot at McKenna. Imagine what a team would pay Chicago for that pick if it meant they had the best odds at winning the draft lottery in the McKenna draft.

I’m sure there are lots of holes in these changes but the ultimate adjustment I want to see is teams are incentivized to start making their teams better and get out of rebuilds faster. Try to end the long rebuild. Prospects are NHL-ready faster after they are drafted. More teams get a chance at top end talent rather than just the teams that are embarrassingly bad for long periods of time. More trades happen.

[Itse]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I have favored more complicated systems that reward winning down the stretch like MC has proposed. There have been several thought through proposals around something like that made. I can't recall the names of them but they are out there.
But I don't see that ever happening.
So I'm actually in agreement that randomizing the bottom 16 makes a lot of sense.

I hate tanking and that teams are rewarded for it. It's one of the worst things about sports now.

There is absolutely no need to reward winning. Every player and team will always try to win every game, that's how they're wired. Winning is it's own reward. Nobody wants to finish last under normal circumstances, in fact teams would likely often fight quite hard just to avoid that embarrassment. Most of the time teams will also be motivated to "at least do better than THAT team", "at least be better than last season", "at least look competitive down the stretch" so fans think "maybe next season", and so buy more tickets and merch, etc etc.

Organizations would also likely spend more of the later parts of a bad seasons actively trying out things for next season. Bring up that exciting draft pick, shake up the lines, give the young goalie more starts. If that actually helps, good! If it doesn't, you lost nothing. As things are, there is incentive to just keep doing more of the thing that already killed your season, because once it's dead, you'd rather tank hard.

There are already massive incentives to always try to win. You only need to remove the one huge incentive against winning, and the rest would take care of itself.

Just let fans always cheer for their team and don't actively punish teams that don't tank. That's all, it's not that complicated.

What you could and probably should add is a system that considers previous draft success, so teams that have already gotten help from the draft have pressure to actually start doing something, and teams can't have an endless stream of bad luck.

[Sidney Crosby's Hat]

The funny thing is, NBA teams more obviously tank than NHL teams and it's been that way for awhile.

Originally Posted by Nadal Fan

They should hold the draft lottery at the All Star Game. No one is going to intentionally tank that early in the season.

This isn't a bad idea. Though at the time of the 2019 all-star game, the Blues had the 8th-worst record and ended up winning the Cup. A rare exception, to be sure.

[Calgary4LIfe]

The point of the draft is to try and help out the bad teams by giving them more talent, and thus it will help for parity. Ideally, you don't want the bottom teams from getting those picks.

Maybe the draft lottery should change somewhat and reward those teams that are just out of the playoffs too. Maybe those teams are 'never tankers' like Calgary, or they are teams on the rise, or on the downfall, and could use an injection of talent too.

1st overall pick - lottery for the bottom 5 teams - equal weighting.
2nd overall pick - lottery for the 5 teams just outside the playoffs - equal weighting.
3rd overall pick - everyone outside of the playoffs - 5% declining percentages (or whatever).

Just for kicks..
If you win the lottery for the #1 or #2 lottery, you are still eligible for the #3 pick lottery. Imagine finishing in the 5th spot from the bottom, and walking out with both the #1 and #3 overall pick. Rest of the draft slides down a spot.

Yes, that's awful. Fun too. At any rate, there should be a balance between helping out the less talented teams, but also discourage tanking. There has to be a happy medium somewhere.

[troutman]

Originally Posted by stemit14

A few things I think could improve the draft:

1. Increase the draft-eligible age to 19 instead of 18.

Probably illegal. Can't prevent an adult from entering the draft.

https://ohlwriters.me/2018/07/23/sho...its-draft-age/

A legal battle is almost surely to happen as there is bound to be another Linesman out there somewhere, someday, that will bring the matter before the courts.

But the NHL’s biggest battle will be with the NHLPA not the courts. In 2004 Maurice Clarett challenged the NFL’s draft rules in court and won, but that decision was later overturned in Appeals Court. That’s because when there is a negotiated deal between the owners and the unions the non-statutory labor exemption deems that labor law trumps all else. This comes down to the NHL needing the NHLPA to agree.

However, the NHLPA has made it clear that it is opposed to raising the draft age to 19. Some argue the NHLPA doesn’t have the right to negotiate terms for players that are not yet part of the Union. They do. The NHLPA has for years negotiated on behalf of players not yet in the Union in the form of earning limits on Entry Level Contracts.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

You really think 18 years olds are signing with the Rangers or LV to sit in the minors for less then Calgary because it’s a desirable destination ?

And let’s say the rookies wanted to sign with NYR and LV , then they don’t have $$ for FAs or trading for players . It’s a capped world

The good teams (usually) don’t have cap room . The bad team (usually) do . Free bidding on rookies elimated any tanking and gives an actual rebuild strategy other then “tank and pray for lottery luck “

There’s only so many roster spots and cap money available for rookies . Imagine if the Flames , SJ , Chicago could sign 3 of the top 15 draft eligible players each this year and offer them NHL spots ? It would accelerate their rebuilds , brings toms of league and local excitement , and pay the players earlier .

And if LV and NYR want to sign top 15 guys they either aren’t signing their own guys or trading quality players to get cap room

Now if we kept the rookie salary rules in place sure - but if it was free market these rookies are usually picking whoever pays them the most (IMO)

The best players are not sitting in the minors, no matter who they sign with. They'll get the same money, and they'll have a chance to win.

The other thing your system would do is encourage young player to sign together - to go to their desired teams in bunches.

Total free agency wouldn't work, and would never be a level playing field. No matter how hard you try to argue for it to be.

[Two Fivenagame]

Any team that finishes last should be forced to hang a banner in the rafters. A big brown banner.

[Erick Estrada]

The NBA should never be used as an example as their lottery is fixed.

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

The best players are not sitting in the minors, no matter who they sign with. They'll get the same money, and they'll have a chance to win.

The other thing your system would do is encourage young player to sign together - to go to their desired teams in bunches.

Total free agency wouldn't work, and would never be a level playing field. No matter how hard you try to argue for it to be.

Where did I argue it’s for a level playing field ? It to remove randomness and luck and tanking - and to an extent rewarding poorly run organizations that are trying to win and suck at it / spend to the cap

2 guys want to sign together ? Great . They have to find a team with enough cap room to sign both . Why is this a “bad” thing . I want the bad teams to sign multiple 1st rounders if they have cap room ! It would bring more excitement to those markets , help them get better quicker (if done right ) and allow better team building strategy then hope a ball is picked in your favor

And what do you mean the good players won’t have to be in the minors ? 2 players from last years draft have played 18 or more games ! Celebrini is the only one over 18 games !

The biggest issue is most players need multiple years in the minors so how would contacts work if they were free agents - teams wouldn’t want a large % of their cap in the minors or bring up players too early before they have developed .

The benefit of getting a franchise 1st overall and not paying them market value is exponentially more important / valuable than anything else in the league . And right now getting that player is dependant on being bad and luck .

The only thing worse would be if it was just luck and seeing good teams get lucky while bad unlucky teams stay bad (although right noe there’s a situation where kind of bad unlucky teams never get a star like Detroit or Utah who had bad draft luck historically )

[Jason14h]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

The NBA should never be used as an example as their lottery is fixed.

Kind of like Pitts getting Crosby when facing bankruptcy , oilers getting McDavid when entering a new building , and top markets like New York , Montreal, Chicago and Toronto winning the lottery ????

[CroFlames]

NBA is a bad example. Clearly shenanigans going on with the Luka trade.

I think the 16 NHL teams that miss the playoffs all get put into the lottery machine and just get picked one by one for draft position.

[Bandwagon Surfer]

Tanking is a good thing.

This is an entertainment product, not a true competition. That ship has sailed long ago, there is too much money and casual fans to change it now.

Most people (ie not hardcore fans) only care about things being interesting, they do not care about the details of the game. They want the extremes because that is interesting, average is boring. Going on cup runs is interesting. Star players are interesting. Top draft picks are interesting. Teams going through tank/contention cycles faster is interesting. Mid/average is the boring zone to avoid.

That is not to say there should not be rules about repeatedly drafting 1st overall. The rules should be setup to reward interesting and punish boring. Repetetive is boring, so rules mixing it up are good. The important part is to ensure the rules to mix it up don't inadvertently reward boring/average.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Calgary4LIfe

The point of the draft is to try and help out the bad teams by giving them more talent, and thus it will help for parity. Ideally, you don't want the bottom teams from getting those picks.

The problem is the lag time between drafting and when the players they drafted develop to the point they can carry a team. It allows tankers to stockpile elite players and go from tanker to force to be reckoned with. Meanwhile non-tankers don't get the same opportunities and tend to wallow in the middle. Especially since the cap came in, you really need recently drafted impact players on ELCs or low second contracts to be a contender.

Colorado is a good example of this (although I don't think they purposely tanked). After they drafted MacKinnon, everyone knew that with proper management, that team was going to be competing in the playoffs in a few years barring bad luck. I don't think anyone was thinking that they should need more top 5 or top 10 picks to make that happen, but they went on to draft Rantanen and Makar (not to mention already having Landeskog in the system). It demonstrates how the draft system can over correct. San Jose and Chicago are going to be similar. I would not be surprised to see them go from bottom feeder to contender very quickly while other teams are left struggling just for actually trying.

Pittsburgh was another example (who I think absolutely did tank on purpose). They drafted in the top 5 four times in five years, including once after drafting Crosby while also having Malkin and MAF. It was just overkill at that point because everyone knew they already had what they needed to get competitive again.

I think every non-playoff team deserves a chance to get a shot in the arm rather than just letting perennial bottom feeders feast on it. I don't imagine it is great for gate sales either in a lot of those markets to promote tanking.

[CorsiHockeyLeague]

Of all the things that need fixing I honestly don't think this is one. You can tweak the percentages a bit if you want but it works fine as far as I'm concerned.

[howard_the_duck]

Originally Posted by Jiri Hrdina

I have favored more complicated systems that reward winning down the stretch like MC has proposed. There have been several thought through proposals around something like that made. I can't recall the names of them but they are out there.
But I don't see that ever happening.
So I'm actually in agreement that randomizing the bottom 16 makes a lot of sense.

I hate tanking and that teams are rewarded for it. It's one of the worst things about sports now.

It would have some growing pains, and the worst teams would absolutely cry bloody murder with a change like this, but long term it'd be best for everyone.

The league likes the OT point system because teams stay in the race later into the season. If there were no teams tanking, there would feasibly be even more competitive balance and it's good for business.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by CorsiHockeyLeague

Of all the things that need fixing I honestly don't think this is one. You can tweak the percentages a bit if you want but it works fine as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah it's not that bad. They could slightly increase the odds for teams on the back end that tried to make the playoffs and just weren't good enough as those teams deserve to at least be rewarded for trying rather than tanking. Then again we just know that it would come back to haunt the Flames in the event they are ever bottom 3 bad with them getting bumped by several teams in the teens.

[zukes]

Originally Posted by MacDaddy77

Leave the draft for now. if anything needs fixing it's the LTIR issue.

Except the league and teams all like it. It's the fans and the media who complain about this.

[zukes]

Originally Posted by lazypucker

Fix the loser points first. I still don't know why the NHL not think about the 3-2-1 point system yet.

Nope, the league and teams all like this too, it's the fans and media who complain. Some years this barely makes a difference anyway.

[dino7c]

fix it alright, fix it so the Flames win

[Icon]

Originally Posted by dino7c

fix it alright, fix it so the Flames win

You know if they do decide to change it, it will be the season the Flames would have otherwise had the #1 OA pick.