Bruins4Ever said:
For the last time, he's not going to a nobody team. If the NHL wants to improve ratings, he's going to a big time hockey town, one of the Original Six would be best.
The NHL could also hand out Golden Globes instead of the Stanley Cup if it really wanted to improve its ratings. Maybe they could just hire Vince McMahon and be done with any attempts at competitive balance. I'm not sure what you're getting at, B4, but if I should take your comments literally, consider me a little in the dark regarding your logic. Am I reading you correctly? I mean this in a friendly way.
I think Jocus's idea by far takes the cake here. I'm not sure if it would work, but it's an attempt at employing an objective and not subjective method of drafting in this circumstance. I think it's an improvement over the method discussed by MacLean. Fairness, ratings, feelings, and other such pseudo-justifications are subjective by nature. What's fair to one is unfair to another. Why not seek to eliminate these subjective factors as much as possible? Is Phoenix really the fifth worst team in the NHL? Should Carolina benefit because they traded veterans for young players and an overall poorer record in the short-term? Should the Rangers benefit from making poor financal and personnel moves over the past half-dozen years? Is won-lost record the best method to evaluate the most "fair" drafting positions?
I think an important distinction should be made between subjectivity and objectivity. I'm not talking about a system where we completely remove subjectivity. With nothing more than objectivity (e.g., statistics), Patrick O'Sullivan would have been a middle first-round pick at the latest and Jeff Carter late in the first round. Subjectivity has its place, but it has so crowded out objectivity that the only people who appreciate it are those who have figured out that it is the albatross around the necks of too many scouts, analysts, and organizations.
Back to the draft-specific discussion: Subjectivity has a place during the development of a drafting system - and one that need not be employed just in the event of a continued strike but under all conditions. I'm thinking of an analytical method where an organization's
trend is numerically determined. One where many aspects of an organization are evaluated with the overall goal of
assigning value. Developing this method of quantifying a team's standing over a longer period of time than just last season seems like a worthwhile exercise. More data equals better results. I might be expanding a little on your post, but in general, great twist on the idea, Jocus.
You can find this theme of mine in any post regarding HF's organizational rankings. The emperor is a really nice guy and I'm glad he's around, but nevertheless, he still has no clothes. We need better methods of evaluating teams and players.