Quote:
Originally Posted by Bnhershy
I've thought about the loser tourney before, but the main issue with it is that it punishes the legitimately awful teams which is contrary to the purpose of the draft lottery.
While both systems discourage tanking to a certain extent, only the lottery helps the teams that need it most
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Yes, but I think that history has proven that the only way for bad teams to get help is to help themselves. It's the difference between say Chicago and Columbus. And that's because unlike say the NFL where a franchise QB can turn you around overnight or the NBA where a franchise player can turn you around overnight no one player can turn you around in the NHL. The key for NHL teams is to draft well year after year, round after round but teams are too caught up with the Penguins' model and think they can get franchise altering players if they just get top picks and so they foolishly tank for years when what they really need to do is change the way examine talent and manage their roster.
So to me there's no downside. If a team is terrible and continues to miss out on high draft picks because they can't seem to get better then it would just accelerate the process of them firing their management group which is clearly not doing a good enough job.
And one final point. Basically, teams would have to change the way they think. It's far too prevailing a belief in sports right now that the model for rebuilding is to get worse to get better. This would change the way that everyone thinks in that regard. Now the thought would be "we need to get better to get better," which is the logical direction to go.
