Do you believe modern “Tanking” is acceptable?

[SheldonJPlankton]

The way to eliminate the tank is to bring all 32 teams into the playoffs and to tie in playoff success into the overall chances to draft #1.

 

[Buck Naked]

The way to eliminate the tank is to bring all 32 teams into the playoffs and to tie in playoff success into the overall chances to draft #1.

So it would be better to have Colorado or Tampa have a chance at the #1 overall pick after the last season? That's dumb and takes away the purpose of the draft.

 

[SheldonJPlankton]

So it would be better to have Colorado or Tampa have a chance at the #1 overall pick after the last season? That's dumb and takes away the purpose of the draft.

Colorado was the #2 overall team last season. Obviously, their chance at #1 overall would be slim under a revised system. Tampa was tied for 8th with the NYR. Both those teams made the conference finals. Why not reward the playoff success of middling teams vs those teams that are first round flops and upsets and let successful playoff teams draft higher?

 

[MikeyMike01]

Stop faffing around and make the draft the reverse of the standings.

 

[Buck Naked]

Colorado was the #2 overall team last season. Obviously, their chance at #1 overall would be slim under a revised system. Tampa was tied for 8th with the NYR. Both those teams made the conference finals. Why not reward the playoff success of middling teams vs those teams that are first round flops and upsets and let successful playoff teams draft higher?

How are you, as an unsuccessful team, gonna turn that around if you can't sniff the high draft picks? It's idiocracy!

 

[Wierzbowski426]

Twice?

Lemeiux and Crosby I believe.

They definitely did it for Lemieux fairly egregiously.... I remember because towards the end of that season the Devils were in line to get 1st OA and won a few games at the end while Pitt was yelling at their team for winning games, and sending the few decent players they had down to the AHL as mentioned. Pitt ended up with 1st OA.

Yes!

Every org needs to go through the cycle of tearing it down, moving out salary, and rebuilding. Nothing wrong with that.

What Pittsburgh did (twice) is much more egregious.

Agree with this 100%. The distinction needs to be made.

 

[SomeDude]

Twice?

He's confusing the 03-04 Pens with the 03-04 Caps. Pens went on a run at the end of the year going something like 12-4-2. The Caps put Kolzig on IR and called up their ECHL goalie. Pens still finished a point below them, but Caps won the Ovi lottery. The rest is history.

Lemeiux and Crosby I believe.

They definitely did it for Lemieux fairly egregiously.... I remember because towards the end of that season the Devils were in line to get 1st OA and won a few games at the end while Pitt was yelling at their team for winning games, and sending the few decent players they had down to the AHL as mentioned. Pitt ended up with 1st OA.

Mario was a tank job. It was Pens vs Devils to see who could tank better. Both blatantly made moves to lose. Crosby was a lottery win after a lockout. As I just said, the Caps were the team that intentionally tanked in 03-04. The Pens had one of the worst rosters in NHL history from the start of the year as they were trying to just keep the franchise afloat. Once the Caps realized they sucked, they focused on trying to get the 1st overall pick.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Even without tanking one team has to finish last. Another has to finish second last. And so on.

Having a lottery at all is dumb. Whether a team is "intentionally bad" or not is meaningless, just like trying to determine if a team's success is intentional or just lucky. Should we give the Cup to the team we determine tried the hardest to compete and win, not the team that actually won?

 

[North Cole]

Sure, who cares. If you choose to bottom out for a few years to try and get a #1 OA pick, then that's a valid strategy that you can employ. I have no issue with it.

You just need to accept the risks of that strategy. Sometimes 1OA picks are Yakupov and are very rarely McDavid or Matthews, so you run the risk of winning the lottery at the wrong time and getting a sub optimal player.

You also need to be prepared for it to be very difficult to get yourself out of, most of the time it seems to take more than 5 years because the tanking methodology instill bad habits and utilizes worse players. Then you have to not only turn the corner, but also have the right management in place to take the next step and the right coach to implement a good system. Easier said than done...

 

[Sidney the Kidney]

Yes!

Every org needs to go through the cycle of tearing it down, moving out salary, and rebuilding. Nothing wrong with that.

What Pittsburgh did (twice) is much more egregious.

When was the second time Pittsburgh did that? In the early 2000s they sold off assets, primarily because they were on the verge of bankruptcy and were doing it for financial reasons, not to intentionally lose to draft a specific player.

 

[Wierzbowski426]

He's confusing the 03-04 Pens with the 03-04 Caps. Pens went on a run at the end of the year going something like 12-4-2. The Caps put Kolzig on IR and called up their ECHL goalie. Pens still finished a point below them, but Caps won the Ovi lottery. The rest is history.


Mario was a tank job. It was Pens vs Devils to see who could tank better. Both blatantly made moves to lose. Crosby was a lottery win after a lockout. As I just said, the Caps were the team that intentionally tanked in 03-04. The Pens had one of the worst rosters in NHL history from the start of the year as they were trying to just keep the franchise afloat. Once the Caps realized they sucked, they focused on trying to get the 1st overall pick.

Fair enough about Crosby, I don't remember that situation as well as i do the Mario situation.

Not sure I agree the Devils were trying to tank for Mario though.

 

[Hockeyholic]

Better to finish 32nd rather than finish 11th.

Nothing worse than being in the middle.

 

[ijuka]

The way to eliminate the tank is to bring all 32 teams into the playoffs and to tie in playoff success into the overall chances to draft #1.

That's the way to eliminate parity.

 

[SheldonJPlankton]

That's the way to eliminate parity.

I think we'd see far more parity.

One, having every team in the playoffs introduces far more money into the NHL and it introduces much of that money to those teams who currently aren't on par performance-wise with the current contenders and see zero playoff dollars under the present format.

Two, introducing playoff performance as part of the overall draft process rewards those teams that perform at or above expectations...and handicaps those teams that squander their opportunities. Over-performers reap the most benefits and underachievers suffer the greatest losses.

 

[Puckstuff]

The point of the game is to win the cup. Tanking is strategically worsening yourself to get better in the future at a cost. In chest, you have to sacrafice a couple of queens to win the game. Same exact thing. The point is to win the cup not just win regular season games.

 

[Midnight Judges]

Tanking is part of the fun IMO.

 

[Machinehead]

I don't give a f*** tbh.

Tank, dive, circumvent the cap.

It's competition.

 

[Kaners Bald Spot]

Depends how egregious it is. Are you just trading away expiring deals and not really trying to sign big name UFA's, or are you going full Chicago and actively trading away players in their early 20's because they'll hurt your chances of drafting Bedard? If it's the latter IMO it's problematic for the game.

I want to ask you.....what in the Hell were the Blackhawks supposed to do? They were a bubble team for 3 seasons, added a #1 defenseman and a goalie coming off a Vezina and still got worse.

 

[mapleleafslaughssame]

No you should always be competing even if you suck. Even if your not in playoff position you can still affect other teams positions and making it easy for other teams is lame. Tanking in general is lame. No lie some of my favourite years as a fan was fighting for 8th spot (and missing cuz im a leaf fan).

Tanking as a strategy is just an excuse a manager will use to save his job or because he’s not good at his job.

Plus nowadays draft order doesn’t even really matter, ya sure there’s the bonafide #1 pick some drafts but otherwise the best player or top5 from the draft aren’t the 1st pick or the top5 picks themselves. Being bad is inevitable you don’t have to do it purposely.

 

[BlueBaron]

It's an interesting question because to me tanking is awful for casual fans and especially kids.

To the average HF poster it's a pragmatic reality that also really indulges any prospect fetish you might have.

The thing about this stuff is market is such a big factor. Big markets can rebuild faster due to their attractiveness and their ability to turn cash into assets through dumps and retention. I probably would not have enjoyed our rebuild quite as much in a small or non traditional market. Montreal is illustrating the point as we speak.

It would be nice to have a team that competed every year and I think it's theoretically possible for the right markets. You'd probably have to avoid going all in though.