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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2nd Year 12 Team Dynasty H2H, Daily Starts
G, A, +/-, PIM, SOG, Hits, PPP, SHP
W, GAA, Sv%, Svs, SO

C: B.Richards, J.Pavelski, D.Roy, A.Killorn
LW: I.Kovalchuk, D.Heatley, R.Clowe, B.Dubinsky
RW: C.Perry, M.Gaborik, B.Wheeler, B.Boyes
D: A.Pietrangelo, P.K Subban, N.Kronwall, C.Franson
G: R.Miller, S.Varlamov, A.Khudobin, B.Elliott
IR: J.Spezza, E.Karlsson

Prospects: Galchenyuk, Johansen, Kuznetsov, Teravainen, Dumba, M.Foligno, Orlov, Pickard, Ramo

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.

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You also should consider that a teams placement isn't an indication of how they're playing at that time. Most recent example of course being LA last year. Columbus was rolling at the end of last year as well. Great idea.

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F: Huberdeau, Hall, Paciorietty, Spezza, Galchenyuk Grandlund, Baertschi, kassian, kreider, etem, Downie
D: Karlsson, Subban,doughty, Pronger, Pitkanen
G: Schneider, Hiller, Dubnyk /A-1 pt Win-2pts Shutouts- 5pts(2+3) PIM- .25pts
Keep 10
Top 13 count in scoring(4 d, 1 g, 7 fwd and next highest scoring skater or G)

right but my point is that if there's a team that is so bad that they simply can't win hockey games, the system has to provide them with the ability to improve. a draft tourney would punish a team like that and at the very worst, result in the loss of the franchise altogether down the road due to a fan base with nothing to cheer for

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2nd Year 12 Team Dynasty H2H, Daily Starts
G, A, +/-, PIM, SOG, Hits, PPP, SHP
W, GAA, Sv%, Svs, SO

C: B.Richards, J.Pavelski, D.Roy, A.Killorn
LW: I.Kovalchuk, D.Heatley, R.Clowe, B.Dubinsky
RW: C.Perry, M.Gaborik, B.Wheeler, B.Boyes
D: A.Pietrangelo, P.K Subban, N.Kronwall, C.Franson
G: R.Miller, S.Varlamov, A.Khudobin, B.Elliott
IR: J.Spezza, E.Karlsson

Prospects: Galchenyuk, Johansen, Kuznetsov, Teravainen, Dumba, M.Foligno, Orlov, Pickard, Ramo

You are falling into the same trap that causes all these teams to tank in the first place, which is the assumption that they can't get better on their own and can only do so by getting the best pick in the draft. What this ignores is that draft position matters less in the NHL than in any sport except baseball. Sure the first overall selection almost always guarantees you a quality NHL player but it doesn't guarantee you the best player and it doesn't guarantee you success in the future. So instead of a team turning itself around by trying to get competitive sooner than later the team will mortgage it's ability to compete now so that it can build for some far off fairytale future where it will compete when the reality is that if they were capable of scouting and developing talent well that they'd be producing quality NHL players regardless of their draft position.

Simply put if you eliminate the incentive for teams to tank and go for higher draft picks then you eliminate that sort of thinking. You wouldn't kill the ability of teams to fail but you'd create greater accountability and you'd quell any urge to engage in tanking. So yes there is a chance that you'd cost yourself a franchise or two that simply cannot get the right management team in place to build a half decent team without the benefit of top picks but you must realize how pathetic that franchise would have to be and how maybe that franchise shouldn't be owned by its owner if he really sucks that much at picking managers.

Also, and this is an entirely different topic but if a team cannot survive because it continues to fail well odds are that's going to happen regardless of getting first overall selections or not and more to the point those teams would seemingly be in locals where hockey may not be able to survive long term regardless of the team's ability to put a winner on the ice. So the point of a lottery shouldn't be, "let's rescue these terribly run franchises," it is supposed to be, "let's prevent teams from intentionally sucking." No amount of lottery seems to quell that instinct to suck intentionally so we need new thinking and a new set of incentives. If a team under a new set of incentives really can't get themselves to compete for even a year or two, even if it's just to compete enough to earn a higher pick then my goodness that team must be dreadful. As of yet there hasn't been a franchise to achieve that level of absolute failure so I personally think that if you are using that as an excuse to poo-poo the "draft pick tournament" then I think you are building yourself quite the straw man.

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You definitely make some sound arguments, but i'm going to have to agree to disagree. the NHL simply has no desire to lose any franchise no matter how poorly run it is or how brutal the market for hockey is. i just don't see the league putting struggling franchises further at risk. in a perfect world, a loser tourney has a lot of benefits like you've stated. but once again, I just don't see it happening anytime soon. not with the current state of the league or what it projects to look like in the next 5 years.

That being said, Rep to you for some very eloquent arguments. (not that you need any :P)

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2nd Year 12 Team Dynasty H2H, Daily Starts
G, A, +/-, PIM, SOG, Hits, PPP, SHP
W, GAA, Sv%, Svs, SO

C: B.Richards, J.Pavelski, D.Roy, A.Killorn
LW: I.Kovalchuk, D.Heatley, R.Clowe, B.Dubinsky
RW: C.Perry, M.Gaborik, B.Wheeler, B.Boyes
D: A.Pietrangelo, P.K Subban, N.Kronwall, C.Franson
G: R.Miller, S.Varlamov, A.Khudobin, B.Elliott
IR: J.Spezza, E.Karlsson

Prospects: Galchenyuk, Johansen, Kuznetsov, Teravainen, Dumba, M.Foligno, Orlov, Pickard, Ramo

I would follow the loser tourney avidly, it sounds like a fun idea. As a draft eligible rookie it would be especially cool because these established NHL'ers are giving it their all to earn the right to draft them. It would definitely help the team dynamic that some players are destroying [see Schultz, Russia].

However, I can't see the players liking this idea. Would they be paid? Would the league still make money from the tourney if they had to pay the players? If not paid, why would the players agree to put their bodies at risk for nothing but a shortened off-season? This prevents basement teams from tanking but what if an 8th seed team throws a couple games to finish 9th thinking they don't have a chance at the cup. LA could have tanked last year to beat up on Columbus and Edmonton to win Yakupov. As an owner in LA's position it wouldn't make sense to go for the cup. This basically stops basement teams from tanking and instead encourages 10th-6th place teams to tank which has a much more drastic effect on the league.

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12 Team Dynasty H2H, Daily Starts
G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, SOG, Hits
W, GAA, SV%, SV, SO

C: Malkin, Backstrom, Briere, Lecavalier
LW: Ryan, Parise, Hartnell, Fleischmann, Ladd
RW: St. Louis, Skinner, Voracek, Neil
D: Phaneuf, Boyle, J. Johnson, Suter, Goligoski
G: Lundqvist, Lehtonen, Anderson

Farm Notables: Schultz, Elliott, Eakin, Fasth

No.

Nordiques with their string of 1st overall picks in 89, 90, and 91 went from 52 points in 91-92 to 104 points in 92-93. From 20 wins to 47 due to drafting Sundin, Noaln, and Lindros first overall. Penguins with Malkin, Crosby, and Fleury turned their franchise around. Oilers with Yakupov, RNH, and Hall are VERY LIKELY to turn their franchise around. Basement teams can turn around with first overall picks, while at the same time, missing out on picks can leave a team in the basement [NYI, CLB, TOR].

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12 Team Dynasty H2H, Daily Starts
G, A, +/-, PIM, PPP, SHP, SOG, Hits
W, GAA, SV%, SV, SO

C: Malkin, Backstrom, Briere, Lecavalier
LW: Ryan, Parise, Hartnell, Fleischmann, Ladd
RW: St. Louis, Skinner, Voracek, Neil
D: Phaneuf, Boyle, J. Johnson, Suter, Goligoski
G: Lundqvist, Lehtonen, Anderson

Farm Notables: Schultz, Elliott, Eakin, Fasth

Absolutely teams can turn themselves around with a string of first overall picks but they can also do so without any top picks at all. Look at Nashville. They've had one top five pick in the history of their franchise, which was David Legwand second overall in 1998, their first year in existence. They sucked for a long time since then picking in that 6-10 range for quite some time but they built themselves a formidable franchise with good scouting, smart drafting, great coaching and excellent development.

The Minnesota Wild pulled a similar trick until recently.

The Philadelphia Flyers hit rock bottom in 2006-07, lost the lottery and missed out on Patrick Kane first overall taking JVR instead and having to wait for him but still turned their team around in one off-season because they had previously drafted well and then made some intelligent free agent signings. They haven't looked back since.

Take any recent Stanley Cup winner and you'll probably find a high draft pick or two but you'll also find quite a few unsung heroes who were either free agent pickups, trade acquisitions or late round draft choices. The reality is that there is more than one model to rebuild a franchise. A lot of people seem to think that rebooting things by stripping the team of all the valuable players and getting high picks is the way to go but all high picks ensure you is a better chance at getting good players.

All the high picks in the world can't overcome incompetence though. What happens if the years you decide to tank are lean years where there are no franchise changing talents to be had? What happens if the so called can't miss prospect at the top of the draft falters? What if your franchise somehow screws him up? High picks will never replace the need for good scouting and development. If you scout well at all levels (meaning the NHL too) you will find undervalued or underappreciated players that can become important pieces of your team and you can add them without needing to draft first overall.

I think that the current system for distributing draft choices is a crutch. Teams look at the Pittsburgh "model", the Colorado "model" and they forget that teams can be built in other ways. That you don't need to draft first to rebuild. It's a total cop-out for people who may simply not be all that good at their jobs. I'd rather we didn't offer that crutch or that we forced them to earn it because there is nothing worse than watching your franchise intentionally throw in the towel because "there's always next year". It's as much a smack in the face to the fans as this whole lockout.

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I agree with you that the NHL doesn't want to lose any franchises but I simply don't think that having a tournament decide who gets what pick would really be the death of a franchise. Odds are there were many other factors in play that were killing that franchise before the lack of a top pick came into play. That also ignores the fact that there is no saying that team couldn't earn the top pick AND it ignores the fact that this deserving team could lose the top pick either through the current lottery or the new lottery proposed by the NHL.

But I still really don't see how a loser's tournament would cause the death of a franchise because any GM with any sense at all would to take stock of the fact that under a system that doesn't simply reward the top pick to the worst team would make endeavours to improve his team and if you really think that some teams are beyond saving then clearly you've ignored what's occurred in Florida and Phoenix these past couple of years.

If there was to be a casualty of this tournament I'd suspect it would be trade deadline day but that day is already kind of disappointing as is so who knows.

I'd also point out that my vision for what the NHL should be does not involve 30 teams so I am fairly unsympathetic to any line of thinking that says we have to save all these teams.

But I also agree that the NHL would never go for it because they haven't had any outside the box thinking for a long time and that's because they've all got their heads stuck up each others' asses.

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