GMs to discuss changing Draft Lottery Odds

[dustygoon]

Originally Posted by Mean Mr. Mustard

Yakupov and Nugent-Hopkins are likely the two worst players on that list, the Oilers have sucked at the worst possible time in terms of franchise players being available. At least in the case of the Blackhawks and Penguins they were able to select franchise players, the Oilers not so much.

So you are saying they suck at sucking too?

Deadmonton starts off a season with good intentions, but by December they are throwing in the towel.

[Locke]

Originally Posted by codynw

You only say that because it was Calgary who finished in that position for so many years. The bad teams should get the high picks (with some sort of rule preventing too many high picks in a short time).

I dont know, theres something to be said for providing teams with incentive for trying as opposed to rewarding them for sucking.

[Laner99]

While I agree what has happened with Edomton the last 4 years is extreme let's not forget it wasnt that long ago that a struggling Penguins team selected top 5, 5 years in a row including 2 first overall and 2 2nd overall picks. I think the overall track record of the ability of NHL teams to rebuild with top end picks is impressive, LA, Chi, and Pits are great examples of teams going from bottom 5 teams to cup winners within a 6 or 7 year span, obviously not just based on good draft picks but that was a big part of their success. The NHL shouldnt change the rules based on the last couple years of a Edm team making crap picks and bad trades. The system isnt broke so leave it be.

[The Yen Man]

I hope they end up calling this the Oiler Amendment.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Laner99

The NHL shouldnt change the rules based on the last couple years of a Edm team making crap picks and bad trades. The system isnt broke so leave it be.

I don't think this is being looked at just because of the Oilers. The league is probably more concerned about teams like the Avalanche that pulled the pin on an entire season to get MacKinnon. The Oilers are failures but I expect they had much higher intentions when the season opened. The Avalanche were quite happy to trot out a lame duck coach for the entire season that clearly lost the team seasons ago and not even attempt to sign one of their top players. That team had no intentions of making the playoffs and used a shortened season as a perfect opportunity to tank for a franchise player in one of the best drafts in years.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Locke

I dont know, theres something to be said for providing teams with incentive for trying as opposed to rewarding them for sucking.

Yep. I hate having to hope for losses but given the current lottery odds you have to finish top 3 to have a decent chance at getting a top player in the draft. If you look at the big picture the NHL rewards the truly terrible not the bad teams as losing season and finish between pick in position 6-10 it's much more of a failure overall than being the worst and getting the best player. Part of the reason the Flames were so bad in the late 90's and early 20's is because they were never bad enough to pick top 5 and never good enough to have a winning record. That's no-man's land and really teams are better off tanking. That's a problem IMO.

[CliffFletcher]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't think this is being looked at just because of the Oilers. The league is probably more concerned about teams like the Avalanche that pulled the pin on an entire season to get MacKinnon. The Oilers are failures but I expect they had much higher intentions when the season opened. The Avalanche were quite happy to trot out a lame duck coach for the entire season that clearly lost the team seasons ago and not even attempt to sign one of their top players. That team had no intentions of making the playoffs and used a shortened season as a perfect opportunity to tank for a franchise player in one of the best drafts in years.

You keep claiming that, but the executives who made those decisions basically lost their jobs. If picking first overall was part of a master plan, why was Sherman shuffled aside, rather than rewarded?

[$ven27]

Originally Posted by Erick Estrada

I don't think this is being looked at just because of the Oilers. The league is probably more concerned about teams like the Avalanche that pulled the pin on an entire season to get MacKinnon. The Oilers are failures but I expect they had much higher intentions when the season opened. The Avalanche were quite happy to trot out a lame duck coach for the entire season that clearly lost the team seasons ago and not even attempt to sign one of their top players. That team had no intentions of making the playoffs and used a shortened season as a perfect opportunity to tank for a franchise player in one of the best drafts in years.

Good lord. You do realize their entire management team got the axe? They wouldn't risk their Jobs by tanking, AHL level defense = bottom feeder.

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

If picking first overall was part of a master plan, why was Sherman shuffled aside, rather than rewarded?

Because he was a horrible GM; an unwitting scapegoat for what looked like a pretty blatant fix. In actual fact, I think that the timing of the personnel changes that coincided with the immediate turnaround actually illustrates this. The team got the player they wanted, and now is the time to start building towards a championship with all the right pieces in place.

[powderjunkie]

It's no fun cheering for losses. Some nice simple math:

25th-30th = 10%
17th-24th = 5%

Draft for all positions.

Also, it should be televised and overseen by a lottery commission. 2 balls for 10%, 1 ball for 5%. We get to see all the balls before they go in the machine, and someone with integrity and no vested interest pulls them out (ie. not the commissioner). We should also get some sort of infrared shot to verify that none of the balls have been frozen a la Patrick Ewing.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Textcritic

Because he was a horrible GM; an unwitting scapegoat for what looked like a pretty blatant fix. In actual fact, I think that the timing of the personnel changes that coincided with the immediate turnaround actually illustrates this. The team got the player they wanted, and now is the time to start building towards a championship with all the right pieces in place.

Yep. I believe a lot of teams aren't happy seeing the Avalanche pick 1st overall and a season later all of a sudden being 5th in the Western Conference and all of a sudden a very good team despite being the exact same team with ROR from the start and MacKinnon being the only change on the roster. I'm not a big conspiracy guy but what happened last season IMO is exactly what it looks like and I believe other teams are not happy and while the Oilers are probably a team that gets named in this it's the Avalanche that are probably the main reason this is picking up steam.

Originally Posted by CliffFletcher

You keep claiming that, but the executives who made those decisions basically lost their jobs. If picking first overall was part of a master plan, why was Sherman shuffled aside, rather than rewarded?

Sherman was rewarded as he still gets to keep his job (in name only) despite doing as poor a job as any GM not named Kevin Lowe. How do you explain Sherman keeping his title while having his duties minimized to the point he's not even doing the duties of a typical assistant GM? To me that screams of wink-wink you steer the ship into the ground for us and we will keep you on without the indignity of getting fired even though you will only be doing contract negotiations from now on but you still keep an NHL job and title.

[Calgary4LIfe]

Originally Posted by codynw

You only say that because it was Calgary who finished in that position for so many years. The bad teams should get the high picks (with some sort of rule preventing too many high picks in a short time).

Actually, it has nothing to do with the Flames. As for how frustrating it was watching the Flames battle for a playoff spot, only to falter and put themselves in a terrible draft position, they are not in that position currently or for the foreseeable future.

I personally think the odds are fine for the lottery. What I would like to see is there be some reward for a team who is battling until the final game of their season, and a penalty for a team that finds itself in the bottom 5 or 10 of the league too many times in 'x' amount of years.

For instance, give the 3rd over-all pick for the team from either conference that was the closest from making the playoffs.

If a team finishes bottom 5 in the league for the 4th year, their pick automatically becomes the 14th pick of the draft, and everyone moves up a slot that were between those picks.

Not saying that this is what should be adopted, but a general idea to both reward and punish teams that don't make the playoffs.

Perhaps changing all 14 picks to a lottery-draw for placement might force teams to play hard. They either make the playoffs and get the associated revenue, or they fail and have to wait until the draft lottery to see where from 1-14 they select for the draft. There would be absolutely no advantage to 'tanking' in this situation. Long term, however, might make parity very difficult to achieve, which is the real spirit of the NHL draft.

There has to be a way to discourage teams from finishing near the bottom of the standings year after year without penalizing them monetarily (which is often one of the reasons why some teams are in that spot) and without making it more difficult to eventually achieve parity. I don't think that you can satisfy just changing around the odds now. Bad teams SHOULD be selecting high, but should be discouraged from doing so for too long.

[M*A*S*H 4077]

Someone on here had an idea based around the team that got the most points once they were officially eliminated from the playoffs got the first overall pick and so forth. Leave nothing to chance and that way every game matters.

This would also discourage teams from holding fire sales at the deadline which would be a good thing IMO

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by M*A*S*H 4077

Someone on here had an idea based around the team that got the most points once they were officially eliminated from the playoffs got the first overall pick and so forth. Leave nothing to chance and that way every game matters.

This would also discourage teams from holding fire sales at the deadline which would be a good thing IMO

While that's an interesting idea, it would be so messy in practice. First of all, teams are going to be officially eliminated at different times so the amount of points available is going to be different for each team. I guess you could go by % of points or wins, instead of total, to keep it more fair, but then you get a team who is eliminated with one game left and then wins their last game for a 100% rating for the draft. Lastly, just figuring it out would be time confusing and messy both for the teams involved and for the league.

[driveway]

The proposal that I really, really like is the one from the NBA, the draft "wheel".

Not actually a wheel that one spins, but called a wheel because a team's pattern of picks repeats every 30 (or however many number of teams there are in the league) years:

The pattern is the same for every team, but each team starts in a different place in the wheel. From the article:

The team that gets the no. 1 pick in the very first year of this proposed system would draft in the following slots over the system’s first six seasons: 1st, 30th, 19th, 18th, 7th, 6th. Just follow the wheel around clockwise to see the entire 30-year pick cycle of each team, depending on their starting spoke in Year 1.

Let's say we started this system this year, basing each team's first pick on their finishing position this year, and we finished 3rd-worst, our first 6 picks under the system would be 3, 28, 21, 16, 9, 4.

[Joborule]

Any system that rewards the 14th worst team in the league over the worst team in the league doesn't understand the purpose, and need of the draft for those teams that are at the bottom of the standings. If it was easy for bottom place teams to to get a marquee players from free agency or trading - without giving up value assets which doesn't render the trade as a wash - then maybe it would be more viable.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by driveway

The proposal that I really, really like is the one from the NBA, the draft "wheel".

Not actually a wheel that one spins, but called a wheel because a team's pattern of picks repeats every 30 (or however many number of teams there are in the league) years:

The pattern is the same for every team, but each team starts in a different place in the wheel. From the article:



Let's say we started this system this year, basing each team's first pick on their finishing position this year, and we finished 3rd-worst, our first 6 picks under the system would be 3, 28, 21, 16, 9, 4.

But then there is zero help for the poor teams. Everyone averages the same over a 30 year period (and really close after only six years) I think most people want to see the bottom teams get some help, we just want to eliminate (minimize) intentional tanking, and long periods of draft rewards if the team is still bad.

[Ashasx]

You can fix it by saying a team can never pick first overall in consecutive draft years, a team cannot draft in the top five for more than two consecutive years, etc.

We don't need to change the percentages.

[PeteLFan]

The wheel seems to be the worst you go from 1 to 30, how does that help teams that are really trying to win but are a few drafts away.

[Daradon]

Originally Posted by Ashasx

You can fix it by saying a team can never pick first overall in consecutive draft years, a team cannot draft in the top five for more than two consecutive years, etc.

We don't need to change the percentages.

Exactly. People can fine tune the exact rules, but something like this is simple to enforce, fair for the league, and still beneficial to teams doing poorly.