How to Fix the NHL’s Disastrous Tanking Situation (Grantland)

[Travis Munroe]

Originally Posted by Cheerio

That is Gold's system word for word. It's option #10 in the Grantland link

I was actually worried after hitting submit that this might be the case and I would look like a fool

[Frequitude]

Next year's change merely decreases the incentive to lose, but the incentive is still there. Lower teams have a better shot at the top picks than higher teams.

I think Gold's system is a fantastic idea.

[dying4acup]

I like the gold scheme too. The lottery is an NBA duplicate, and there is still extreme tanking going on there.

It would also reduce the number of trade deadline trades btw. Would the NHL want that?

[#-3]

I just think its great that all of these guys seem to hold the Flames up as the example of Anti-tankers.

I never supported the idea of tanking, I think culture and development is more important that who you draft. Drafting is important, but without development you just have Hall or Yakupov.

[jroc]

Originally Posted by Tiger

wouldn't the gold standard mean it would be best to tank harder and get eliminated earlier so you can collect more point potentially. I think that system would make things worse really over the entire season, with picking up intensity for the last two or three games

Could you imagine a scenario where a team had an oiler-like season, nearly eliminated from playoff contention by the deadline. Rather than selling off assets, they actually stock up on big game players so they can collect as many points possible once they're officially eliminated?

That would be hilarious!

[FireGilbert]

They shouldn't drastically change the draft, it is supposed to give the worst teams the highest picks. More needs to be done to prevent tanking though.

I like what they are doing by evening the odds a bit and having the lottery for the top 3 picks next year. They should go further though by making it for the top 5 picks and preventing teams from getting multiple high picks in a row. Something like no back to back 1st overall picks allowed and no more than 2 top 5 picks every 3 years. They can call it the Oiler rule.

[jroc]

Another reason why the Gold idea doesn't sound so great: Down Goes Brown Tweet

[GGG]

To me the tanking issues undersells the real problem. Ownership is not incentivized to make the best possible team every year. For example for the flames there was no value in chasing free agents this last year not only because we wanted space for rookies but because those deals would not have improved the team long term.

The Oilers and others are able to cover up years worth of incompetence with the words rebuilding and it's logical if you have a path out.

The Gold standard doesn't fix the issue of ownership dressing subpar teams under the guise of rebuilding. The wheel does


I like the wheel. It provides better assets for trading and allows good teams to plan for the future. It will encourage owners to fire bad management and provide good teams. It will decrease the highs and lows of teams. Right now there is too much Lag between a player being impactful and being drafted so a team collects too many similar aged high end prospects leading to the highs and crashes.

In a system that gives you a top 5 pick every 6 years it balances out that talent curve.

[mister__big]

I think the system the league has in place for next year is good enough. The possibility of dropping anywhere from 1 to 5 spots removes the incentive to completely tank.

Although if it were up to me, I would make it possible to drop up to 9 spots to really make it impossible to win the lottery by tanking.

[mister__big]

Originally Posted by jroc

Another reason why the Gold idea doesn't sound so great: Down Goes Brown Tweet

And that is exactly what I dislike about the Gold plan. GMs will just gut their team to start the season to be mathematically eliminated ASAP, then make moves later to improve their team. If a team is mathematically eliminated very early on like the Oilers, it makes it almost impossible for other teams to catch them.

On the other hand, if the Gold plan is based on points percentage won after being eliminated (with a minimum number of games required so teams that are eliminated on the last week of the season cannot qualify) then I can see myself getting behind it.

[King Theo]

I like the system that we will have next year, with 3 team winning the draft lottery. Maybe we could have the draft for all 14 non-playoff teams.

[afc wimbledon]

I would favour a rule that teams couldn't get more than one nos 1 pick per 5 or 10 years, to stop perennial tanking, it could be called the Katzing Lowe rule.
Other than that I'm not sure it's really that big a deal.

[getbak]

There are many problems with the "Points After Elimination" idea, and they're probably bigger problems than what we have now.


The most obvious problem is that it will encourage teams to be as bad as possible as early as possible, in a race to get eliminated. Sure, it might lead to some teams playing better for the last couple of weeks of the season (which is already the most exciting part of the regular season anyway), but it could also lead to some really bad hockey earlier in the season as GMs try to get eliminated ASAP.

This system encourages the exact type of behaviour people want to stop. Yes, players will never try to lose, they're too competitive for that, but coaches and management can make decisions that are against the best interest of their team's performance to make them worse. Once eliminated, they can change strategies and make an effort to win. Obviously, it isn't as easy as flipping a switch, so there are no guarantees they can turn things around, but it does give a team like that an edge over one that is truly bad, and has been consistently bad all season.


The biggest problem I see with it is that even if teams don't intentionally tank sooner, it creates too small of a sample size, and amplifies the value of every single point for those late-season games.

Over an 82 game season, where every team plays 41 home and 41 road games, the ebbs and flows of a season cancel each other out over the long term. That isn't so much the case in a 10 or 15 game sample.

Over the full length of the season, the best teams usually win 65-75% of their games and the worst teams usually lose 65-75% of their games. Over a random 10-15 game sample, those numbers are going to vary much more widely, and will be more easily impacted by things like long home stands and road trips or the quality of the teams being played in the 10 game segment.

Every team in the league is likely to have a ten-game segment during the season where they get 12 or more points. Every team in the league is likely to have a ten-game segment where they get 6 or fewer points. It seems arbitrary to reward the teams who have a big streak late and punish the teams who have a big slump late, when over 82 games, their records are nearly identical.


The worst case would be a team that starts a big winning streak just before they get officially eliminated, so all of the points they get just push back their elimination date further and hurt their draft position (without really putting them any closer to a playoff spot).

When Buffalo was eliminated, the Blue Jackets were one point ahead of the Leafs and near the brink themselves (19 points out with 13 games left). Then, the Jackets started a big run and have won 10 of their last 11 games (Boston also went into a slump around the same time, so they weren't accumulating enough points to eliminate the Jackets). Toronto just kept on sucking and was eliminated with 11 games left in the season (and have earned 4 points since). The Jackets were just finally eliminated after Boston's win on Tuesday with 6 games left (and have 0 points since).

The Jackets started winning at a time when they had no realistic chance of closing the gap and making the playoffs but weren't yet officially out. The system wants to reward teams who play well down the stretch, but actually punishes them if they start playing well too soon.

[Itse]

Elimination is also dependant on conference. For example a team in the west might get eliminated sooner than a team in the east even though they have the same amount of points.

The whole system is pretty much custom designed to first encourage teams to play as bad as possible and then reward teams that are the best out of the bad teams. That's kind of the opposite of desirable. (Which is teams trying hard and then the worst of the worst getting help.)

Plus of course it would be really confusing to follow as you'd need to start keeping two sets of standings. And it's highly random. It's pretty much the worst suggestion ever.

[Ducay]

Who cares, every system is going to be flawed. Just spread the odds out a bit more and we're done. The draft and selection process exists for a reason, if a team trades away all their assets in order to do poorly, then they deserve that good pick, because they have no other assets left. That is the nature of the draft.

People are forgetting the Oilers arn't "tanking" no player will ever tank on purpose, the only real tanking that can occur is when a GM/coach do so by trading/scratching/waiving players.

[BurningSteel]

I'd rather worry about playoff chances than draft posistion.

[nfotiu]

Originally Posted by cral12

{I didn't see posted - feel free to delete if a Fata - I recall tanking threads in the past}

Couple of posts today on NHL tanking and the draft system.

1. From Grantland, Down Goes Brown: How to Fix the NHL’s Disastrous Tanking Situation

Excerpt:


2. Jonathan Willis at Sportsnet - highlighting an old one (that others and I have previously made reference to - he was on the Fan today): A smart way to keep NHL teams from tanking for the draft

From #THW Archives:

- Fixing the NHL Entry Draft Lottery System: Playoff For Number One

- Suggested NHL Draft System: Honour for Connor

___
What system do you prefer - current or alternative?

I always thought they should move to an auction system, but with some tweaks. Something like the teams bid cap space for rookies. Rookies would still get the max salary (to prevent the Mcdavids from getting a 20 million salary as a 18 yo), and the cap space bid would be distributed to the other teams. Teams that are young and in rebuild would have more room to bid. Mature teams that are at the cap wouldn't. It would bring lots of strategy into team builds, and good for fans.

[EldrickOnIce]

^interesting - like a fantasy draft. Not likely though.

As has been said... lottery for more first round picks (maybe even every pick outside of playoffs - or start again with playoff teams) while making the odds that much closer. No limit on how far a team can drop - or make it 5 places or something. Then revert to standings from second round on.

[Jason14h]

Is Buffalo really having a 20% chance at first pick a bad thing?

Is anyone going to argue Buff, Edm, Phoenix, Toronto are all hideous and need major talent upgrades?

Who cares HOW hideous they are. If each had kept all their players (terrible asset management) they would still be hideous.

NO WAY does a team finishing 9th or 10th deserve the same shot at #1.

How would we have felt the last 2 drafts if we ended up with picks 10 or 11? How would we be without Monahan?

[Robbob]

You really have to let the new changes go into effect before. The problem with the current system is the worst team is guaranteed top 2 regardless of what happens.

The new system they potentially could drop to 4th rather easily. They only have 20% chance of being selected as is, and their % will only increase proportionally depending on you wins the lotto so that 20% doesn't increase that substantially.

If someone out of the top 5 wins the lottery (37% chance), the lottery for the 2nd pick still has them close 20%.

It will be interesting to see the lottery simulations when they are made for next year. I think people will be happier once they see the potential results (I'm looking at you Edmonton since you have always been on the forefront of lottery simulator generators).