The draft lottery is still a joke

[puckluck2]

Originally Posted by St. Pats

Nailed it Walter. This is it in a nutshell and Flames fans are even more sickened this year when the team sucks yet again, trades it's two top players and still can't get a top pick. This thread is just pure jealously.

LOL. This thread has absolutely nothing to do with the pathetic Oilers. That franchise is what we are jealous of? Nobody is jealous of the most pathetic organization in the NHL and maybe North America.

[flamesaresmokin]

Originally Posted by gunnner

MLB teams do it for the entire month of September every year. So thats NHL, NBA, and MLB. 3 out of the 4 leagues in North America are a joke I guess by that logic.

Its ridiculous for anyone to claim that "tanking" is actually a strategy that is affecting the league. Any of the bottom feeders in a league are simply just really bad teams....Calgary included.

Even if any of them were icing their best lineup the last few games, they'd still be losing more then they win.

[FlamesAddiction]

Originally Posted by St. Pats

Nailed it Walter. This is it in a nutshell and Flames fans are even more sickened this year when the team sucks yet again, trades it's two top players and still can't get a top pick. This thread is just pure jealously.

The draft lottery debate has been around as long as I have been a member here. It comes up more frequently now, but I think there are numerous reasons for that (namely, because we have parity in the league now, so why is this supposed "parity" tool still around in almost the same form?).

The league in fact, has acknowledged that the pre-2005 system was obsolete and has changed the rules. IMO, it doesn't go far enough, but I really don't think they wanted to shock the system by giving it a complete overhaul.

[Flamenspiel]

It would be nice to get back to team 4 or team 5 with odds close to 10 percent for winning the top pick. If you look at the NBA draft, there are surprises.

[itsmagic]

Min 0 - Edm 6 after 40 minutes.

QED

[Itse]

Personally I think tanking very much exists on the organizational level, and honestly GM's would be stupid to not do it to some extent.

However, I would be surprised if it was a very active effort, but more of a sidethought in things that are done anyway. Resting veterans with slight injuries is simply good resource management, because there will be a next season, and even with UFA's the risk of significant injury is just not worth it. And "giving young players a chance" does have some merit to it, whether as a means to reward some guys or to give some much needed experience to prospects. The fact that both of these things propably also give the team a better draft pick is something I would imagine that is not talked about, but is on a lot of people's minds, and propably does encourage to do both things even more.

However, that's not really the problem to me. What I hate is the situation that winning can be significantly harmful to a sports team. It's totally messed up that a fan base is on each others throats because they can't decide whether they actually want to win games.

It's totally messed up that a Flames fan can have a hard time deciding whether he wants us to finish above or below the Oilers. It serves to suck out excitement over the most basic goal in sports; winning.

This is why the current draft system is a terrible system.

This is why many Euro leagues have the relegation system; to ensure that teams don't stop playing halfway through the system.

The draft could be used as a means to make every game worth winning for a team; give the 1st pick to the first team out of the playoffs and go down the standings from there, (but reverse the picks for the playoff teams). With a different draft system, every team could be fighting tooth and nail for every point thoughout the whole of the season. As it should be in sports.

EDIT: Or just randomly hand out the first 14 picks to the last 14 teams. Just have anything but a system that rewards losing.