Fixing the Draft, Stopping the Tank

[ThisIsAnOutrage]

From the pre-conscious churning of a hung-over mind, a singular thought takes form: I bet there wouldn't be any tanking if the draft was done like a white elephant gift exchange...


Which is correct! But needs some tweaks to accomplish the draft's other goals of keeping farm teams stocked and helping out the basement-dweller of the league...


So gone are draft rounds and draft picks! The ballyhooed gold plan, left to rot on the side of the road. For it too is beholden to those out-dated notions; the feeble machinations of the addled minds of decrepit old men.
There are only draft slots and player points! These can both be traded, more on that later.


The last traded old system pick has been used and a new season begins. Each team has 100 player points and seven draft slots.


The regular season ends, each team that doesn't make the playoffs is award extra player points. 17 points for the highest ranked team to 31 for the second worst team. The worst team gets 33 (this number being 3x11 is significant vs. 32 since it allows for 3 extra picks if desired). Edmonton finishes 23rd, awarding them an extra 23 points.


The playoffs end! The Flames win the cup (lol). The Leafs are heartbroken to have been swept in the championship series. The Bruins can't believe they lost to the Leafs in the Eastern conference final. Everyone expected the Flames to sweep the Canucks in the Western Conference final, so it was no surprise.


As the Cup champs the Flames get 1 extra point, the Leafs 2 as the runners up, Canucks 3, Bruins 4, and so on until the lowest ranked playoff team gets an extra 16 points.


As the Cup champs, the Flames make the first selection in the draft (because that sucks in a white elephant gift exchange).


The Flames can pick any player in the draft. They must spend at least one player point to draft him, they must always have at least one player point per open draft slot (even during the regular season). They start with 100 points (base alotment) plus 1 more point for winning the cup. The Flames spend 50 points to draft Dougie Marone. he fills one draft slot, and the Flames have 51 points to spend on selections for their remaining six slots.


Toronto is next. They can select a new player, or steal Dougie Marone from the Flames for what the Flames paid for him (50) plus at least one more point. The Leafs steal Marone, spending 70 points, which the Flames get. The Leafs now have 32 points left (100 base alotment, plus 2 for making the stanley cup final, minus 70 to steal Marone) and six open draft slots. If anyone wants to steal Marone from the Leafs, it now costs 70 plus at least one more point. That's the rule. Stealing costs the last price paid for the player, plus at least one more point.


Since Marone is gone, the Flames now seven open draft slots again, and 121 points to spend in the draft.


Since Marone was stolen, the Flames pick again. The only player they can't pick is Marone. To reacquire him, another team must steal him from the Leafs first. There is no limit on the amount of times a player can be stolen, he just can't be stolen back by the last team he was stolen from.
The Flames pick Tito Puckman for 23 points. Leaving them with 98 points and six open slots.


Vancouver picks, Boston steals, Vancouver picks again. The Sedin juniors wind up on different teams.


Later the Oilers come up. They have all seven draft slots open, but oh no! They traded all but the seven points they are required to keep to Mike Grier in order to move out Darnel Nurse's contract! The Oilers will get to keep the farm system stocked, but it won't be with anyone good. They will have to draft 1 point schlubs and hope they don't get stolen. While the sharks don't get any extra slots from the Oilers, they can pay more to try secure their picks, or sacrifice points (Directly to Gary Bettman because he gets off on it) to create a new draft slot.


The Sharks finished last! They have 100 points (base alotment) plus 33 from finishing last, plus another 123 points from the Oilers, for a total of 256! They can buy anyone! But its Mike Grier. He sacrifices 30 points to Bettman to get three extra slots (cost of a created slot is 10 points per). He has 226 points to spend on 10 selections. The most he can spend on any one selection 217, since he needs at least one point for each of the other 9 slots. Grier makes a bullet proof steal: He Grabs Gongor McDuffus from Tampa Bay for 217 points. Tampa can't steal back, and no one else has enough points from the steal. He only loses McDuffus if some other team acquires enough points to make the steal. What might other teams demand in trade?


Shocker! Winnipeg trades Hellebuyck to St. Louis for a 2nd string goalie and 78 points, putting them over the top to get McDuffus out of San Jose. Kyle Connor goes to Vegas in exchange for a draft slot to give Winnipeg room to make the deal, and the Winnipeg rebuild is on!


And so on until all slots are filled, and no team has enough points or wants to create any more slots.


Marone refuses to sign with the Leafs, and demands a trade to the Flames. Leafs get one point for him. He wins the Vezina, Art Ross, and Calder, as a fantastic play-making goaltender!


Flames lose to Buffalo in game 7 of the SCF next season. You should have seen Buffalo's draft day!


Discuss! Fix it up. I don't know, maybe you hate it. I'm still a little hungover. NHL would never do it, because it hates fun, and GMs are scaredy cats.


Fun fact. There is no reason that teams have to be limited to picking/stealing one player at time. Flames want spend 88 points to fill all seven slots right away, why not?

[SebC]

Three months later, it's finally over. The few GMs who haven't quit solemnly look at each other and swear "never again".

[MegaErtz]

Discontinue the lithium.

[topfiverecords]

This is how I always end up with a crappy travel mug from the gas station my uncle bought last minute on the way over. No thanks.

[McG]

I'm also hungover and I like the ability of teams to grab more prospects...maybe to go for absolute volume instead of picking from the top.

One thing that I think would happen is that the draft would take a long time to do. and having taken part in some of these "drafts" at Christmas time, no one seems outrageously happy. and one person seems delirious because the rules meant that they ended up with the prized present.

I always look for ways to demo it in real life. that was what got me thinking about how long it would take to do a hockey draft with buddies. people would be passed out by the time they got through all of the rounds!

I however applaud the creativity as opposed to just being mean to the OP.

[gvitaly]

It's an interesting idea, and it would create one huge circus on draft day. I can see it being entertaining, but also very difficult for the scouts and teams to execute in any timely manner.

Personally, I like the draft the way it is.There are a couple of things the NHL should change like the loophole with players that go through the college route. I would also change the lottery odds slightly, so that teams that missed the playoffs in consecutive years, and didn't win the lottery would get a bigger chance of winning the lottery the longer they suck, and not win it. I think it would speed up rebuilds like the one in DET.

[The Cobra]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

It's an interesting idea, and it would create one huge circus on draft day. I can see it being entertaining, but also very difficult for the scouts and teams to execute in any timely manner.

Personally, I like the draft the way it is.There are a couple of things the NHL should change like the loophole with players that go through the college route. I would also change the lottery odds slightly, so that teams that missed the playoffs in consecutive years, and didn't win the lottery would get a bigger chance of winning the lottery the longer they suck, and not win it. I think it would speed up rebuilds like the one in DET.

Wouldn't that give certain teams even more incentive to tank?

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

It's an interesting idea, and it would create one huge circus on draft day. I can see it being entertaining, but also very difficult for the scouts and teams to execute in any timely manner.

Personally, I like the draft the way it is.There are a couple of things the NHL should change like the loophole with players that go through the college route. I would also change the lottery odds slightly, so that teams that missed the playoffs in consecutive years, and didn't win the lottery would get a bigger chance of winning the lottery the longer they suck, and not win it. I think it would speed up rebuilds like the one in DET.

There is no loophole

[ThisIsAnOutrage]

Originally Posted by SebC

Three months later, it's finally over. The few GMs who haven't quit solemnly look at each other and swear "never again".

Come on, man. Get into the spirit of things! You think it takes too long? find ways to speed it up.

Limit the number of steals each team can do. Teams who get stolen from only get the orignal cost plus half the overage, thereby reducing the amount of points in play and future steals.

Also, I don't think it would be too long. Draft already takes two days. Cut out the filler, leave in the stealing action and that two days is waaaayore entertaining. Plus at a certain point, most GMs will kind of just fget.their guy. I suspect it wouls create chaos only for the more sought after players.

Plus after two years, the analysys will ground down what type of player with what attributes is worth how mamy points. It may well take a more complex system to get the draft to be anything but predictable.

[ThisIsAnOutrage]

Originally Posted by gvitaly

It's an interesting idea, and it would create one huge circus on draft day. I can see it being entertaining, but also very difficult for the scouts and teams to execute in any timely manner.

Personally, I like the draft the way it is.There are a couple of things the NHL should change like the loophole with players that go through the college route. I would also change the lottery odds slightly, so that teams that missed the playoffs in consecutive years, and didn't win the lottery would get a bigger chance of winning the lottery the longer they suck, and not win it. I think it would speed up rebuilds like the one in DET.

Thanks, GV.

Question is It G. Vitaly or G.V. Italy? This has been perplexing me for some time.

[Bend it like Bourgeois]

Fixing the draft and tanking is dead easy if ever they wanted to. Which no one does.

Step 1. Let go of the idea the draft is there to help bad teams get better. It’s hasn’t been true since the last lockout. Now it’s a strategy. Tank, and hope for Mcdavid not Yakopov or at least keep tanking til its true. With the odd exception every team in the bottom 10 choses to be there.
Step 2. Set a schedule for the draft order. Once every 32 years every team gets every pick, and every year it varies top 3rd, middle and bottom. Let the best franchise win, not the luckiest.

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

There is no loophole

It's not rocket science.

College players can continue to play for their team till they become UFA, Junior players cannot, Euro players also cannot play out the 4 year string either as long as the drafting team offers them a contract.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Bend it like Bourgeois

Step 2. Set a schedule for the draft order. Once every 32 years every team gets every pick, and every year it varies top 3rd, middle and bottom. Let the best franchise win, not the luckiest.

You're quite sure the league will have exactly 32 teams, no more, no less, for the next 32 years?

[Jiri Hrdina]

Better solution is something like this:
- Bottom 10 teams qualify for the draft top 10 picks of the lottery
- As soon as a team is eliminated their point % at that point is used to set reverse standings
- The team with the highest winning %, after their elimination point, gets the #1 pick. And so on.

There are things to work out, such as it doesn't account for different strengths of schedules post elimination.

However I like the concept because you reward winning down the stretch.

[Geeoff]

I think that no matter what system you use, someone will finish last

Unless you stop counting wins and losses?

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

It's not rocket science.

College players can continue to play for their team till they become UFA, Junior players cannot, Euro players also cannot play out the 4 year string either as long as the drafting team offers them a contract.

No. It's not rocket science.
Every player can become an unrestricted free agent 4 years after being draft eligible.
Pretty simple, actually

[Snuffleupagus]

Originally Posted by EldrickOnIce

No. It's not rocket science.
Every player can become an unrestricted free agent 4 years after being draft eligible.
Pretty simple, actually

Sure but all groups aren't the same, a junior player would have to take a year off of playing in order to make it to a UFA, making it simple would be for the NCAA to allow contract offers like Euro's so the drafting teams retain their rights.

[FlamingHomer]

It will never happen but how about Central Scouting ranks the top 32 players. The number one prospect picks the team he wants to play on. That team is now finished the first round unless they acquired a first round pick from another team. The second ranked prospect picks his team. Etc etc. There could be any number of reasons a player chooses their particular team. The second round would be as usual with the lowest point team picking first.
The draft would be way more exciting and good players don't have to be punished by going to a team they don't like.

[YyjFlames]

This would certainly be entertaining. It would be fun to see how teams actually feel about the top player and the various strategies that would come out from a system like this. In Bedard’s year, we might have seen all the teams put most of their points on bedard with Chicago taking him but spending all of their draft capital on him…

The rest of the teams would probably have also pushed in the points and bet big for the top five and then a little more strategic value plays after that. Probably by the end of the first couple of rounds, a couple of teams that saved points would get five guys in a row and the rest of the teams would be out of points and we’d end up with a standard draft from there… kind of like the end of auction leagues in fantasy sports.

Interesting thinking… and it would create a new front office job of draft strategist, but it’s way too different and a little too complicated to get sny traction. Fun though.

[EldrickOnIce]

Originally Posted by Snuffleupagus

Sure but all groups aren't the same, a junior player would have to take a year off of playing in order to make it to a UFA, making it simple would be for the NCAA to allow contract offers like Euro's so the drafting teams retain their rights.

It won't happen like that though. Teams won't retain college players rights more than 4 years. But it could give junior players a place to play. I'm 100% all for getting rid of those stupid NCAA eligibility rules, so a player isn't forced into a binding decision one way or the other.