Tournament of Losers

[smalltownref]

Personally this is what I would like to see... the league expands to 32 teams, 16 in the West and East each. The first round of playoffs is a 3 game series where its 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 ... for both the west and east. The 'second' round of the playoffs in the new format is the current first round of the playoffs, where it is assumed that teams 1-8 will win their 3 game series, but it gives teams 9-16 an opportunity to pull off an upset and make the second round of playoffs. It also gives teams incentive to play hard for a full 82 games in the regular season so that way for the first round of the playoffs, they can draw perhaps a lower quality team and improve their chances of advancing. Just a thought

[trumpethead]

Originally Posted by Sgrath

This is my coupe of crazy ideas - a lot of holes in them I'm sure but here goes nothing

1)
Each conference holds a play off brackeet of sorts
1st round: Conference champs get a bye - other 14 teams drawn at random and play home & home games. Winner advances
2nd round - all 8 remaining teams drawn at random same home & home
keep going till there is a winner
Ranking defines draft order - lose in 1st round gives better draft pick. The kicker here is that the winner of the playoff gets the last Stanley Cup playoff spot if they don't finish in top 8.

Truly bad teams won't make it but the incentive for a sure fire playoff spot will ensure good competion.

2)
Teams that do not make the playoffs have there draft rankings calculated by a statistically valid sampling of the seir seasons results - say 20% of games at random. This way the truly bad teams will be more likely to get the better picks and tanking after missing playoffs will not guarantee a good pick.

Why would teams who have already secured a playoff spot be required to play in a tournament where the prize is a playoff spot??

[Inglewood Jack]

Originally Posted by GGG

How about a tournament of losers for the 8th playoff spot that also decides draft position. so on each side you would have 8 play 16 7 play 15 etc. The losers of those games would get the top 8 draft picks by equal weighted lottery. Then you continue the playdown until you have 1 team in each conference and they get the eigth seed in the playoffs. Just single elimination with home games for the better team.

There is incentive for ownership to not finish in the bottom 4 because you get 1 home playoff game. And fans are interested because all you need is to win 3 games and you make the playoffs.

was just about to suggest this. I think this is about as close to a perfect solution as you can get, the only possible downside is having a really terrible bottom feeder get into the playoffs and get crushed by the #1 seed. but that always happens to at least a couple of series anyways.

I'm told this is how they do it in college basketball or something, but it would make things exciting for everyone up to the very end. and the bad teams would still get the draft picks they need.

[octothorp]

It's ridiculous that you should actually need to provide any team an incentive for winning; all you need to do is remove the incentive for losing. One simple solution would be to rank the teams in terms of order in which they are mathematically eliminated from playoff contention (order in terms of games played, not chronological). This creates the potential problem that this can be affected by one conference being more competitive than the other, which is easily rectified by alternating the order of conferences. So for example, let's say Florida is the first team eliminated from playoff contention. They get the first overall pick. The second overall pick goes to the first western conference team to be eliminated. The third overall pick goes to the next team eliminated, and the fourth overall pick goes to the second team eliminated in the opposite conference from the third team.

As soon as a team is eliminated from playoffs, they have nothing to play for except pride. That should be enough to ensure that GMs manage their teams down the stretch in a way that rests players who shouldn't be playing but fields competitive lineups that also keep in mind player development.

And yes, it's still possible to tank, but if you're going to do so, you need to do so early. Having a rebuilding season where you're just going to focus on your young players and hope that this results in a high draft pick is a legitimate organizational strategy, as opposed to putting the worst possible team on the ice late in the season in hopes of artificially improving your standing.

Granted, it's not a perfect system and it would still suck for teams like the Flames who, this year, got on a bit of a hot streak between the time that they were practically eliminated from the playoffs but not mathematically eliminated from the playoffs.

[calgaryrocks]

Originally Posted by smalltownref

Personally this is what I would like to see... the league expands to 32 teams, 16 in the West and East each. The first round of playoffs is a 3 game series where its 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 ... for both the west and east. The 'second' round of the playoffs in the new format is the current first round of the playoffs, where it is assumed that teams 1-8 will win their 3 game series, but it gives teams 9-16 an opportunity to pull off an upset and make the second round of playoffs. It also gives teams incentive to play hard for a full 82 games in the regular season so that way for the first round of the playoffs, they can draw perhaps a lower quality team and improve their chances of advancing. Just a thought

that is a cool idea, but it would lessen the importance of the regular season. you would still have motivation to climb higher but no playoff races. you would also have to shorten the regular season (fine by me, 82 games is too long)

[tvp2003]

Rather than having the worst teams play for the top pick, I would make it completely random:

- Out of the 14 teams that don't make the playoffs, the last 8 teams (finishing 23 to 30) get an equal opportunity for that first pick (12.5% chance each). No point in tanking because the team that finishes at the bottom has the same odds as the team finishing 23rd in the league.

- That leaves the 6 teams that finish in the middle of the pack from 17 to 22 (i.e. just out of the playoffs) -- those teams should still be in the playoff hunt so there's less risk of them tanking as there is still incentive to win.

Will there be a risk of the worst teams only ending up with the 6th, 7th, and 8th pick? Sure. But I don't hink the point of "parity" is to necessarily to make the last team better the fastest (by giving them the best player in the draft) -- it is to give the poorer teams the better players in the draft so they can become better.

I also realize there is a big difference between 22 and 23... which could lead to a risk of tanking if you're on the bubble to be a lottery team. But given the current point system, the teams from 17 to 23 are often still in the playoff hunt as the season winds down.

It would also make trading draft picks a lot more interesting -- a team that is 23 to 26 that trades away their first round pick could end up dealing away the first overall pick -- do you take that gamble (as the team dealing the pick) or pay extra (as the team accepting it)?

[trumpethead]

Originally Posted by smalltownref

Personally this is what I would like to see... the league expands to 32 teams, 16 in the West and East each. The first round of playoffs is a 3 game series where its 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 ... for both the west and east. The 'second' round of the playoffs in the new format is the current first round of the playoffs, where it is assumed that teams 1-8 will win their 3 game series, but it gives teams 9-16 an opportunity to pull off an upset and make the second round of playoffs. It also gives teams incentive to play hard for a full 82 games in the regular season so that way for the first round of the playoffs, they can draw perhaps a lower quality team and improve their chances of advancing. Just a thought

I think making the playoffs provide teams with all the incentive they need to "play hard". This is stupid.

[Locke]

I understand the need to help bad teams dial the suck down to a reasonable level, but what the draft needs is a 'poison pill' to disincentivize tanking.

Something along the lines of:

- Getting the first overall pick in Year X means that they are prohibited from drafting in the top 10 in Year Y.

It removes the incentive to constantly acquire top picks. You get the help but theres no sense in trying to tank the next season because you're not getting the payoff anyways.

[Ark2]

Not this crap again...

[Walter Reed]

Originally Posted by Psytic

Or the 29th and 30th place teams get relegated to the AHL. This would cause more competition because even the Oilers would try to avoid that type of shaming.

I'm not agreeing or disagreeing but that notion would also effect all the Flame fans here that were clamouring for the Flames to finish 30th as well.

http://forum.calgarypuck.com/showthread.php?t=126036

[gvitaly]

I also think that tanking for a better draft pick ruins hockey for the fans. However in order to keep the parity in the league, a tournament would not be a great idea. So the draft lottery stays as it is but...

I think we could use a financial deterrent of finishing lower in the standings.
I was thinking of two possible solutions:

1. During the season collect a percent of the revenue to be redistributed at the end of the season based on accomplishments(prize money if you will).

2. The standing would determine which percent of your revenues would you need to pay the following year. Where a last place team has to pay the most. I use it as a percentage because a team with lower revenues could really be crippled by a fixed sum.

This way an out of market team could get rewarded with substantial money for next season for winning, making the league even more competitive. In contrast a richer team that is tanking would be forced to pay higher fines.

Let me know what you think. I doubt it is plausible because I doubt the GMs would agree to something like this, but it would sure make things more exciting!

[atb]

Originally Posted by Locke

I understand the need to help bad teams dial the suck down to a reasonable level, but what the draft needs is a 'poison pill' to disincentivize tanking.

Something along the lines of:

- Getting the first overall pick in Year X means that they are prohibited from drafting in the top 10 in Year Y.

It removes the incentive to constantly acquire top picks. You get the help but theres no sense in trying to tank the next season because you're not getting the payoff anyways.

Yeah, I think the best idea I've seen mentioned so far is to have a lottery for the first 5 picks overall which all non-playoff teams participate in. The big difference is that the weighting system would not only take the standings into account, but also whether a team has had a top 5 pick in the previous 5 drafts. Using some TBD formula, a teams chance at a current year top 5 pick would be reduced by a percentage which is tied to the top 5 picks they obtained in the previous 5 drafts. Having the first overall in the previous year's draft would carry the highest chance reduction. Looking at the picks from the previous 5 drafts for the teams currently below us in the standings:

Edmonton: 1st, 1st, 1st
Colorado: 3rd, 2nd
Florida: 3rd, 3rd
Tampa: 1st, 2nd

So those 4 teams would face some sort of chance reduction to obtain a top 5 pick in the current draft. It would basically prevent Edmonton from getting a top 5 pick in the current draft, with Colorado, Tampa, and Florida a having significantly reduced chance. This is all based on the assumption that teams that have had drafted previous top 5 picks should be improving (aside from terrible management).

[Husky]

This is a stupid idea. No other league does this. Teams that tank are just hurting their fan base. So its on mgt and such to ice/motivate their teams to do well the following seasons etc.

[flamesaresmokin]

Why not just live with the current system? Teams are going to be bad, why do we need to waste time coming up with some ridiculous system to reward teams that flounder in mediocrity as opposed to the ones that are truly bad? To me its a lot more pathetic to continuously finish 9-12 then to finish 13-15 once in a while.

[J epworth]

Originally Posted by Husky

This is a stupid idea. No other league does this. Teams that tank are just hurting their fan base. So its on mgt and such to ice/motivate their teams to do well the following seasons etc.

Just because you think it's a stupid idea doesn't mean it isn't fun to think up ways to try to improve the system.

[BigRed]

I don't know what the right solution is, but I agree something ought to be done. There is a fundamental flaw in a pro sports league when there is incentive to lose; if an incentive to win can't realistically be provided, then certainly a disincentive to losing should be considered.

I like the idea of previous top 5 picks limiting teams' ability to choose top 5 in subsequent years. That only makes sense. Not fair to have one over-the-top loser like Edmonton hoard first overall picks 3 or 4 years in a row.

[Dorkmaster]

I think first and foremost you have to remember that the draft is to help terrible teams become better. Any system has to help these teams become better otherwise they will eternally be terrible teams.

For me the main issues in the draft is teams getting multiple top 5 picks (especially first overall) and teams that stop trying near the end of the season which makes the draft not properly distributing talent to teams that need it.

I'd like to see that no team can pick first consecutively and no team can pick top 5 three years in a row. This is mostly just to see top end talent being dispersed more evenly to every team.

Next I'd like to see draft positions get determined at trade deadline. This is just to ensure that selling off pieces does not impact your actual draft position. Plus at that point in time there should have been a large enough sample size to determine which are the weakest teams.

I don't see a tournament being particularly fair towards teams like Florida that are actually terrible. They have had horrible injury troubles to go with an already mediocre lineup. They definitely deserve the first overall pick this year.

[FanIn80]

Originally Posted by Husky

This is a stupid idea. No other league does this. Teams that tank are just hurting their fan base. So its on mgt and such to ice/motivate their teams to do well the following seasons etc.

If there are two things we can all learn from the Edmonton Oilers, it's that tanking is exciting for your fan base, and that getting multiple first overall picks in a row doesn't mean you still won't continue to suck.

Mind you, nobody credible has ever said that learning from the plights of the Edmonton Oilers is a good idea.

[Resolute 14]

My preferred solution is to use the current system, but reverse the percent chance of winning.

Give the best non-playoff team a 25% chance of picking first overall, decreasing down to the 0.5% for the 30th place team.

Basically, it would break down this way:

17th: 25% 1st pick, 75% 17th pick
18th: 18.8% 1st pick, 56.2% 16th pick, 25% 17th pick
19th: 14.2% 1st pick, 42% 15th pick, 43.8% 16th pick
20th: 10.7% 1st pick, 31.3% 14th pick, 54.5% 15th pick
...
28th: 1.1% 1st pick, 1.3% 3rd pick, 97.6% 4th pick
29th: 0.8% 1st pick, 0.5% 2nd pick, 98.7% 3rd pick
30th: 0.5% 1st pick, 99.5% 2nd pick

Basically, the worse you are, the lower your odds of drafting first overall, and the greater your odds of being bumped down one position. This gives teams a reason to be the best they can, while also still allowing the truly awful teams the chance to improve, as dead last is still guaranteed the 2nd overall pick.

[SofaProfessor]

Change the odds of the lottery. Have even odds for teams 26-30, even (but slightly lower) odds for teams 21-25 and so on. Yes, there is still an incentive to tank. I don't think there is any way to remove that incentive. At least this way teams aren't totally throwing it away just to come 30th. There would be no distinction (in lotto odds) between 26th place and 30th. Also, this option is simple. No tournament of losers. Leave the post season play for teams that earned it.