The NHL Needs to Embrace the Gold Plan

[pylon]

I love how the Edmonton Oilers are directly responsible for this issue. Bunch of ass clown losers running that team. And the stupid thing is, I don't even think they were tanking ever. They are just a bunch of clueless morons that suck at life.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

The guiding principle of the draft order in every pro sports league in NA is to foster competitive balance and help bad teams get better. Under that principle, these alternatives just won't work. It sucks royally that the Oilers get first pick year after year, but the whole purpose of the draft order is to help a team like that.

The problem is that the same system does nothing to help middling teams and pretty much ensures that unless they strike lighting, they stay a middling team. And being a middling team for too long can have the same negative effect as being a bottom feeder for too long. The only other alternative is selling off everything, bottoming out, and rebuilding. And the latter sucks for a fan base. Teams shouldn't be punished for trying to provide the best quality of entertainment they can in the present. "Win now" should always be the default position. The Flames specifically have been on the raw end of this deal far too often IMO.

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

My suggestion:

- Lottery is for all teams that missed the playoffs (picks 1-14).
- Even odds for each and every team at the lottery.
- The exception to this, is a team cannot win a top 3 pick if they chose in one of those spots the previous year.
- So the NHL does two separate draws, one for picks 1-3 and another for picks 4-14.
- Picks 15-30 are based on playoff results.

That's it. Pretty simple. The idea of "tanking" is 100% eliminated.

This is the best idea IMO. Randomize the lottery, or at least split into tiers. It would promote rebuilds on the fly more than the "5-year plans" that can suck the life out of a fan base, especially when they fail.

[Jason14h]

That is the worst idea

How do you expect a bad team to be good/ improve if they loose the even odds lottery a few times ?

How about if Flames lost the lottery in the Monahan and Bennett years and got the 9th and 11th picks for example

The draft is to disperse young talent to the worst teams. Which is exactly what it does.

The new system address most issues.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by Strange Brew

The guiding principle of the draft order in every pro sports league in NA is to foster competitive balance and help bad teams get better. Under that principle, these alternatives just won't work. It sucks royally that the Oilers get first pick year after year, but the whole purpose of the draft order is to help a team like that.

sure, but no league in history expected a franchise to be so bad, and yet so lucky, that they manage to draft 4 1st picks overall in 6 years...with a shot at 5 in 7 years.

there has never, ever been that level incompetency in the history of pro sports...

the fact that the NHL is looking at another tweek to the rules speaks to that.

edit. not sure if i agree with the gold plan... but to prevent tanking they should either 1) give all the teams that miss the playoffs an equal shot at number 1 or 2) give a reverse order to the lottery teams - the best team out of the non playoff teams gets the number 1, the worst gets the last pick of the lottery.

[You Need a Thneed]

The "Gold plan" is a horribly flawed plan that will be skewed too much by the limited number of games after official elimination for all but a few teams. Also, there are a whole bunch of factors out of a teams control that affect exactly when a team is officially eliminated, and these would make the system essentially random, and not anything like what its proponents want it to be.

Truthfully, it should never be spoken of again.

I'm not sure why everyone wants to throw out a system that hasn't even been done once yet.

Put some kind of limit on very top picks over a certain number of years, and that should be all that is needed.

Honestly, the solution could easily be if the Oilers win one of the lottery picks, everyone laughs, then they put the balls back in the drum and pick again.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by oldschoolcalgary

sure, but no league in history expected a franchise to be so bad, and yet so lucky, that they manage to draft 4 1st picks overall in 6 years...with a shot at 5 in 7 years.

there has never, ever been that level incompetency in the history of pro sports...

the fact that the NHL is looking at another tweek to the rules speaks to that.

But the horses have left the barn in this case.

My problem with the Gold Plan is that people are mad at the Oilers and want to change the draft in order to prevent that from happening again.

But IMO, it's extremely unlikely to happen again anyway. The Oilers have not only been extremely lucky, they have also been extremely incompetent.

The chances of that combination happening again, to that degree, is extremely unlikely.

So why change the draft and effectively eliminate the primary purpose of the reverse draft, simply to try and stop the Oilers (who have already left the barn)?

[mdubz]

Originally Posted by Jason14h

That is the worst idea

How do you expect a bad team to be good/ improve if they loose the even odds lottery a few times ?

How about if Flames lost the lottery in the Monahan and Bennett years and got the 9th and 11th picks for example

The draft is to disperse young talent to the worst teams. Which is exactly what it does.

The new system address most issues.

Bad teams are normally bad because their management sucks. Proven by the Oilers with their continual 1st overall picks and terrible team management.

[FiveSeven]

Bad teams need good picks. The current system gives bad teams good picks but also gives others a chance to win & move up/down.

It's a natural cycle and if a team wants to embarrass themselves and tank than so be it. We all know one pick doesn't turn around a team, you need good scouting and management. Not just the ability to select an accepted #1 overall player.

Oilers will go down in history as being a group so bad they had to change lottery rules. Good enough for me. System is fine IMO.
If you want to get fancy just put a cap on how many top 3 picks you can have in X years...finished.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

But the horses have left the barn in this case.

My problem with the Gold Plan is that people are mad at the Oilers and want to change the draft in order to prevent that from happening again.

But IMO, it's extremely unlikely to happen again anyway. The Oilers have not only been extremely lucky, they have also been extremely incompetent.

The chances of that combination happening again, to that degree, is extremely unlikely.

So why change the draft and effectively eliminate the primary purpose of the reverse draft, simply to try and stop the Oilers (who have already left the barn)?

lol... well, i was thinking the same thing after the Oilers won 3 in a row the first time around... the NHL BOG was too dumb to change things at that time...

while i agree that its too late to prevent the Oilers from further destroying the draft odds as we know it, the issue of tanking is still something that ought to be addressed.

the problem with the system is that it encourages tanking, whether actively (Buffalo) or through massive incompetence (Edmonton).

a fully equal lottery for all the non playoff teams discourages that, while a merit based system that rewards the "best of the worst" ensures that teams and fanbases still have something to chase even if they are out of the playoff race

[FurnaceFace]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

In this type of setup teams like Edmonton would be screwed, and rightfully so. But it might even benefit them and their fans in that their whole organization would be throwing in even the kitchen sink to try and do better, rather than fizzle out and be okay with that.

Might be an aberration but last year under the gold plan™ the greasers would have gotten McJebus anyway.

[Mony]

Originally Posted by djsFlames

If players don't care about the draft then why would they throw away games early to accumulate draft points?



The only thing teams can do is have their coaches sit key players for games in January and you could easily counteract that with a correspondent fine. But 90% of teams at that point are still looking to claw back in.

In the people throwing the games, I had management more in mind than the actual players. Things like icing your worst roster possible. When talents like McDavid/Crosby/Mario come around, it's a situation that isn't out of the question.

[BACKCHECK!!!]

The NHL needs to take over administrative control of the Oilers for 5 years.

Hockey doesn't have a tanking problem... they have an Oilers problem.

[DazzlinDino]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

But the horses have left the barn in this case.

My problem with the Gold Plan is that people are mad at the Oilers and want to change the draft in order to prevent that from happening again.

But IMO, it's extremely unlikely to happen again anyway. The Oilers have not only been extremely lucky, they have also been extremely incompetent.

The chances of that combination happening again, to that degree, is extremely unlikely.

So why change the draft and effectively eliminate the primary purpose of the reverse draft, simply to try and stop the Oilers (who have already left the barn)?

Yet here we are again with the oilers sitting near or at the bottom of the league again. They are only one injury away from doing it again next year!

[TheScorpion]

If I am not mistaken, until the Sabres game ends, the Flames currently sit #2 overall in the Gold Plan standings.

Of course, that’ll change once the Sabres get the loser point.

[Enoch Root]

Originally Posted by DazzlinDino

Yet here we are again with the oilers sitting near or at the bottom of the league again. They are only one injury away from doing it again next year!

Can't change then rules for this season. People want the rules to change to stop the Oilers, but any rule changes would only punish other teams.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by StrykerSteve

My suggestion:

- Lottery is for all teams that missed the playoffs (picks 1-14).
- Even odds for each and every team at the lottery.
- The exception to this, is a team cannot win a top 3 pick if they chose in one of those spots the previous year.
- So the NHL does two separate draws, one for picks 1-3 and another for picks 4-14.
- Picks 15-30 are based on playoff results.

That's it. Pretty simple. The idea of "tanking" is 100% eliminated.

And the bad teams never get better. This idea completely disregards the whole purpose of having a draft

[Yrebmi]

No option to vote I don't like it better than the lottery without saying its terrible terrible.

[Resolute 14]

The only anti-tanking draft proposal that is worse than the "Gold plan" is the proposed NBA wheel draft. Given how closely most teams end up eliminated, what you are doing with this plan is determining draft order by little more than random luck. Because most teams are eliminated with only a handful of games left, issues like strength of schedule and injury play far too great a role in determining the outcome.

It's just a bad solution to a non-problem, frankly.

[oldschoolcalgary]

Originally Posted by Enoch Root

Can't change then rules for this season. People want the rules to change to stop the Oilers, but any rule changes would only punish other teams.

Actually, I never want to see a team get 3 first overall picks in consecutive years ever again. Oilers or anyone else.

As a Flames fan, how crappy would the team need to be to get 3 1st overalls in a row? or 4 in 6 years?

Not something I would want to be a part of....

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by Street Pharmacist

And the bad teams never get better. This idea completely disregards the whole purpose of having a draft

This problem exists even with the current system. Teams that don't get top draft picks but are still bad enough to miss the playoff often have a much harder time improving.

The way I see it, there are good teams and there are bad teams. Just because one team might win 2 or 3 more games in an 82 games season and finish outside of a top pick, it doesn't mean that they are really better off or have better future assets than the teams below them.

A team constantly finishing just outside of a playoff spot still misses that revenue and still has disappointed and jaded fans, but probably even less hope than the bottom feeders that at least get the good picks every year.

It's not like it was before the salary cap era where the bottom feeders were on a totally different level of terrible and often wouldn't get more than 20-30 points in a season. It made more sense then to give the best prospect to those clubs. But now with parity worked out through the cap and lower free agency ages, the "terrible teams" are really not worse off than any other teams that struggles and misses the playoffs. It usually just comes down to a handful of wins or losses.