GDT: Draft lottery thread

[HisNoodliness]

Whether we tanked or not is entirely a definition thing. Personally I think a team has to try to actively get significantly worse inorder to tank. Truly bad teams can't tank because they can't finish well to begin with. So I'd say we didn't tank, trading AA was our only at all tanky move and it occurred after the season was lost. That's just rebuilding.

If you think being bad and not trying to make yourself better is tanking, then sure we tanked. That's very different than like the Rangers of a few years ago, or Buffalo in the McEichel draft. They could have been okay, and did everything they could to be bad.

For what it's worth, I'd have been a proponent of tanking when we had the chance. It's too late now though. We're just bad.

 

[SimonEdvinssonAtSix]

Yzerman intentionally fielded a non-competitive team.

Please tell me what Yzerman could have done to field a competitive roster?
You act as if he had a choice in the matter.
What moves could he have done? What trades? In what fashion could he have fielded a competitive roster?

You claim he fielded a non-competitive team intentionally.
I argue that you are wrong and that he had no choice but to field a non-competitive roster.

Look at the 10 years leading up to Yzerman taking over as GM. Our prospect pool is empty of real talent, our draft picks are mostly busts, our roster is riddled with over priced contracts still on the books. We can't trade away any assets that have value because we need them to move forward ; but we need better products to put on the ice and that will cost us assets of value. So we can either trade away our futures ( Ken Holland style ) or move ;esser valued assets for boom/bust deals ( Perlini, Fabbri ). Both Perlini and Fabbri were brought in to field a more competitive team btw, one worked and one didnt, but that is the nature of boom/bust trades. It's also why we still have our first and second round picks this year.

You can say words, but it's context that gives them meaning. Without context to prove your claim the words hold no value.

 

[Frk It]

Lose games 4-1 with less bad contracts and more roster flexibility

Lose games 2-1 with more bad contracts and less roster flexibility

I’m OK with option A.

 

[Retire91]

So which teams in the cap era have tanked by your narrow definition?

Every team that tanks is doing it because it's the smart thing to do, or they wouldn't do it.

Outside of bringing back Blashill (i would have fired him first day on the job), I have no quarrel with Yzerman's job in this

Signing a Nielsen to a 6-year deal or Green to a 3-year deal would have been a mistake.

Tanking was the right route to go.

At some point - I would have traded for a backup goalie and ditched Howard to the AHL or IR.
You can't ask your young guys to go out and play knowing their goalie can't stop a beachball.
Just stop the bleeding a bit.

I guess I would draw the line and its probably a broad grey line. First of all the wings are not tanking, Holland did leave the team this bad. Whether you blame Holland or ownership doesn't change the roster. This roster is completely devoid of talent necessary to compete and has about 20-25 million in negative value assets on the cap.

If you intentionally dive endlessly season after season that is one thing. When you have two choices, one to chase perpetual mediocrity or two to stand your ground and see if the draft can help you I don't consider that tanking. What is the point of bringing in a bunch of FA to climb out of last place with no chance at the playoffs or if by some miracle you get in it would be an embarrassment. What exactly does that do to the team except put us back in Zadina draft territory at best. What exactly is the payoff to chase perpetual mediocrity. Is the only payoff so you don't get accused of tanking. What would this fan base do if Yzerman brought in a bunch of Mediocre FA. It would be Holland 2.0 and Holland was let go for a reason.

Yzerman made moves to better the team, he also didn't make moves which will make the team better in the long run but didn't necessarily make the team better this season. Is that tanking, I don't think so? Tanking is having a decent team but throwing in the towel on the season and all of a sudden your best players are scratched on IR or AHL conditioning stints. This team only has about 5 legit NHL players and several of them were injured this season.

I mean come on, if we are tanking then every bad team in the history of the sport was tanking.

Lose games 4-1 with less bad contracts and more roster flexibility

Lose games 2-1 with more bad contracts and less roster flexibility

I’m OK with option A.

I mean I just don't get it why is this so hard to understand

Whether we tanked or not is entirely a definition thing. Personally I think a team has to try to actively get significantly worse inorder to tank. Truly bad teams can't tank because they can't finish well to begin with. So I'd say we didn't tank, trading AA was our only at all tanky move and it occurred after the season was lost. That's just rebuilding.

If you think being bad and not trying to make yourself better is tanking, then sure we tanked. That's very different than like the Rangers of a few years ago, or Buffalo in the McEichel draft. They could have been okay, and did everything they could to be bad.

For what it's worth, I'd have been a proponent of tanking when we had the chance. It's too late now though. We're just bad.

This is absolutely right the time to tank when it would have mattered was like 6-7 years ago. People on our case for tanking are just dialing in last minute for a chance to kick someone while they are down.

 

[MBH]

Please tell me what Yzerman could have done to field a competitive roster?
You act as if he had a choice in the matter.
What moves could he have done? What trades? In what fashion could he have fielded a competitive roster?

You claim he fielded a non-competitive team intentionally.
I argue that you are wrong and that he had no choice but to field a non-competitive roster.

Look at the 10 years leading up to Yzerman taking over as GM. Our prospect pool is empty of real talent, our draft picks are mostly busts, our roster is riddled with over priced contracts still on the books. We can't trade away any assets that have value because we need them to move forward ; but we need better products to put on the ice and that will cost us assets of value. So we can either trade away our futures ( Ken Holland style ) or move ;esser valued assets for boom/bust deals ( Perlini, Fabbri ). Both Perlini and Fabbri were brought in to field a more competitive team btw, one worked and one didnt, but that is the nature of boom/bust trades. It's also why we still have our first and second round picks this year.

You can say words, but it's context that gives them meaning. Without context to prove your claim the words hold no value.

You act like he had no choice.
He DID have a choice.
He chose the obviously correct course.

The correct course was to tank.

You guys associate tanking with negative connotations. I don't.
Most anyone who's been calling for a rebuild since 2013 knows that this was necessary.

 

[Ezekial]

Wait. People are hostile at this guy because he suggested the Wings tanked??

Yzerman tanked.

He signed placeholder, low impact UFAs would couldn't be expected to help much. He kept his loser coach.

Did he expect the depths of the tank we saw? No. Noboby could have predicted that Jimmy Howard would post one of the worst W-L records off all time.

All signs point to Yzerman planning another awful season.
He sold up a 25-year-old for 2nd rounders. He's keeping Blashill around.
I expect he'll find run-of-the-mill goalie to replace Howard.
Yzerman is definitely in the tank next year.

As he should be, quite honestly. I'd jettison the coach. I'd get a capable veteran RD to help take the pressure off of Seider and Hronek. I'd get a goalie who can win at close to Bernier's clip.

We are heading for another bottom-3 finish, folks.
Probably at least 3 more bottom-five finishes.

I have a bigger problem with him marginalizing Franzen and Z's injuries.

(not that they'd be amazing players right now, that their lives aren't incredibly impacted)

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Wikipedia has one
Tanking (sports) - Wikipedia.
In American professional sports, tanking refers to the practice of intentionally fielding non-competitive teams to take advantage of league rules that benefit losing teams. Tanking teams are usually seeking higher picks in the next draft, since league rules generally give the highest draft picks in reverse order to the previous season's worst teams. Tanking may also be referred to as rebuilding.

Yzerman intentionally fielded a non-competitive team.
He could have been an idiot and overpaid for veteran UFAs and traded for veterans in some effort to try and compete for the playoffs.
But he did the right thing.
He just accepted that we need to suck.

Now, I don't think he intended to be historically bad.
But he also made no effort to avoid it.


For some reason, journalists and fans are really disturbed by Sabres fans cheering for a loss during their tank during the McEichel Derby.
Eliote Friedman spoke about it yesterday when defending the lottery.

Who cares? Fans had every right to be happy about losing that game.
Those fans - who paid money for that game and probably paid money for many other games - had a moment of joy because, at long last, all those shitty losses were going to have a silver lining.

Beats the f*** out of what Detroit fans got.

Did Yzerman make them a non-competitive roster from even a mediocre roster? No. He just didn't sell out to improve them a mediocre amount. That's the difference. If the Wings were a borderline playoff team and guys like AA and Green were a top 6 forward with a reasonable long term salary and a legit top 4D and they got dealt for garbage? That's tanking. They weren't that though. AA was a -42, complete defensive liability who was coming up for a new contract and Mike Green is completely finished as an effective roster player.

Also? Made no effort? Then what the hell was adding Erne, Perlini, Fabbri, Comrie? Signing Patrik Nemeth and Valterri Filppula? He was adding players where he could. He made efforts, but there is only so much that you can reasonably do. He made reasonable cost moves to try to spark something. He also lost key pieces to injury for long stretches of the year. Hell, Larkin and AA came in from the summer both nursing injuries as well. Maybe he wasn't able to make home run moves, but he was doing what he could to improve the roster. There were not reasonable price additions who would consider the Wings in FA, the Wings do not have material assets that would actually have improved their team to trade (like trading Mantha could get you something very good, but it would also weaken your roster a good deal).

And f*** yes journalists and fans are disgusted at fans cheering for a loss. I mean, that wasn't a couple of "woke" bloggers or the Mike Valenti's of the world. That was a whole stadium of fans actively rooting against their team. That is an embarrassment to the league.

Leagues don't want a scenario in which you have half the teams trying to compete and the other half racing to the bottom. That's why (in addition to wanting cost certainty) they fought so hard to install the salary cap. I'm sure that the NBA and MLB were wanting so very badly to prevent Houston, Florida, and Philadelphia from doing what they did.

 

[ZDH]

We. Didnt. f***ing. Tank.

Just stop MBH.

 

[ZDH]

Anyone interested in moving #4 for #2 w LA?

I dont know if they are but Ide be interested in something like our 1st/2nd/Mantha/Cholo for #2.

 

[Killerjas]

Anyone interested in moving #4 for #2 w LA?

I dont know if they are but Ide be interested in something like our 1st/2nd/Mantha/Cholo for #2.

Disgusting trade, I rather keep all these players than to get Byfield. A Stutzle, Rossi or Perfetti is also very good.

 

[ArmChairGM89]

Anyone interested in moving #4 for #2 w LA?

I dont know if they are but Ide be interested in something like our 1st/2nd/Mantha/Cholo for #2.

Huge over pay imo I’d consider Mantha straight up. Or the offer minus Mantha

 

[ZDH]

I dunno I think the gap between 4 and 2 is quite big.

 

[ZDH]

Disgusting trade, I rather keep all these players than to get Byfield. A Stutzle, Rossi or Perfetti is also very good.

Im making this trade to get Stutzle. Hes not on the board at 4.

 

[SimonEdvinssonAtSix]

You act like he had no choice.
He DID have a choice.
He chose the obviously correct course.

The correct course was to tank.

You guys associate tanking with negative connotations. I don't.
Most anyone who's been calling for a rebuild since 2013 knows that this was necessary.

No, he did not have a choice. It's no act, it's a truth.
I do associate tanks with negative connotations, SO DOES THE ENTIRE NHL HENCE THE LOTTO.

But asking you for examples has proven fruitless. It's because you can not back up your stance with them, nor facts.
The facts show that Detroit is very bad team. We can trace it all the way back to the 2010s. We can show, with examples and facts, exactly why the Wings are where they are and it has nothing to do with tanking.

But you do you man, I know I won't change your view.

 

[Big Poppa Puck]

Tank or no tank, whether its the Wings or whoever, the worst team in the NHL shouldn't have only a 18.5% chance at 1st while a 50% chance at 4th. And no way should a 100 point team like the Pens possibly have a chance at the #1 pick just cause a pandemic changed the playoff format.

Those 18.5 and 50 numbers need to meet somewhere closer to the middle. And the lottery needs to be shrunken to maybe the Top 7 or 10 and not every non-playoff team, especially this year. The lottery that was done Friday should have only included the non-restart teams. If you wanted to then have a second lottery after the 'qualifying round' to figure out 8-15, go right ahead, since this season is an outlier.

 

[Henkka]

Tank or no tank, whether its the Wings or whoever, the worst team in the NHL shouldn't have only a 18.5% chance at 1st while a 50% chance at 4th. And no way should a 100 point team like the Pens possibly have a chance at the #1 pick just cause a pandemic changed the playoff format.

Pittsburgh is the 7th best team in points percentage at this season, and has this chance to 1st overall.

That's the MAIN thing what really went wrong. Not the thing that weaker teams on the playout have the chance. But these upper teams, if falling out on the playout roind should have had some "positions raised" limit.

 

[jkutswings]

The disconnect here is about how the NHL defines tanking. No matter whether any of us agree or disagree with a given definition, the league put the lottery in place specifically to dissuade front offices of teams near the bottom from deliberately trying to lose.

Yzerman made several moves to reasonably do the best he could with the awful hand he was dealt. That's very different from trading or benching any player who could help win a game, specifically for the sake of losing as much as possible.

The league isn't asking bad teams to enter cap hell with as many veterans as possible to be mediocre instead of bottom 5. They're asking bad teams to still try to win games as best they can. Detroit did that, but their abyss of talent left them at the bottom of the standings, and they shouldn't be penalized for that by the lottery several years in a row.

The NHL may have had noble intentions, but the system they implemented is inappropriate for what they're really after.

 

[Lazlo Hollyfeld]

The disconnect here is about how the NHL defines tanking. No matter whether any of us agree or disagree with a given definition, the league put the lottery in place specifically to dissuade front offices of teams near the bottom from deliberately trying to lose.

Yzerman made several moves to reasonably do the best he could with the awful hand he was dealt. That's very different from trading or benching any player who could help win a game, specifically for the sake of losing as much as possible.

The league isn't asking bad teams to enter cap hell with as many veterans as possible to be mediocre instead of bottom 5. They're asking bad teams to still try to win games as best they can. Detroit did that, but their abyss of talent left them at the bottom of the standings, and they shouldn't be penalized for that by the lottery several years in a row.

The NHL may have had noble intentions, but the system they implemented is inappropriate for what they're really after.

Especially given that the loser point and forced parity has already help avoid teams racing to the bottom. More teams are in the playoff hunt much later in the season than they used to be.

 

[raymond23]

The disconnect here is about how the NHL defines tanking. No matter whether any of us agree or disagree with a given definition, the league put the lottery in place specifically to dissuade front offices of teams near the bottom from deliberately trying to lose.

Yzerman made several moves to reasonably do the best he could with the awful hand he was dealt. That's very different from trading or benching any player who could help win a game, specifically for the sake of losing as much as possible.

The league isn't asking bad teams to enter cap hell with as many veterans as possible to be mediocre instead of bottom 5. They're asking bad teams to still try to win games as best they can. Detroit did that, but their abyss of talent left them at the bottom of the standings, and they shouldn't be penalized for that by the lottery several years in a row.

The NHL may have had noble intentions, but the system they implemented is inappropriate for what they're really after.

Exactly. People are using the word ‘tank’ way too liberally right now. Kind of like another term... lol

 

[DetroitRed]

Another thing that strikes me about the lottery is that we tend to focus too much on how it effects the first round. However, it really effects every round, of course. If you get knocked back one spot, that effects you seven times per draft (once per round). So, two spots is 14 times per draft, and three spots is 21 times. Recall that the wings have been knocked back two or three spots per season for about the last half a decade. Now, take the total of all that and multiply it by seven rounds. My point is that the lottery is pretty destructive to teams trying to rebuild. Maybe we'd even be done by now once we got Lafreniere and added him to the better players we would have been able to pick through the years. Instead, we're just getting started. In fact, we're now having to trade away some of our ageing rebuild players because we haven't been able to build around them quickly enough. And all this just so that the NHL can give the mediocre teams three chances per season to take one of the best three draft picks, all just in case somebody is tanking. Meanwhile, the league makes trading players for picks an annual event at the trade deadline: They bank off bottom-of-the-standings teams weakening their rosters, and then turn around and punish you for not having a good finish.

 

[jfrank21]

Another thing that strikes me about the lottery is that we tend to focus too much on how it effects the first round. However, it really effects every round, of course. If you get knocked back one spot, that effects you seven times per draft (once per round). So, two spots is 14 times, and three spots is 21 times. Recall that the wings have been knocked back two or three spots per season for about the last half a decade. Now, take the total of all that and multiply it by seven rounds. My point is that the lottery is pretty destructive to teams trying to rebuild. Maybe we'd even be done by now once we got Lafreniere and added him to the better players we would have been able to pick through the years. Instead, we're just getting started. In fact, we're now having to trade away some of the rebuild players we picked up because we haven't been able to build around them quickly enough. All this so that the NHL can give the mediocre teams three chances per season to take one of the best three draft picks, all just in case somebody is tanking. Meanwhile, the league makes trading players for picks an annual event at the trade deadline: They bank off bottom of the standings teams weakening their rosters, and then turn around and punish you for not being a good team.

That's not how it works at all. For example, just because detroit "slid back" 3 spots this year in the 1st round, they still have the first pick in every other round (except the 4th rd because they traded it for Erne). It was like that in prior drafts as well. Rounds 2-7 go simply by place in the standings.

 

[MBH]

Did Yzerman make them a non-competitive roster from even a mediocre roster? No. He just didn't sell out to improve them a mediocre amount. That's the difference. If the Wings were a borderline playoff team and guys like AA and Green were a top 6 forward with a reasonable long term salary and a legit top 4D and they got dealt for garbage? That's tanking. They weren't that though. AA was a -42, complete defensive liability who was coming up for a new contract and Mike Green is completely finished as an effective roster player.

I just quoted the Wikipedia definition for you. You don't want to accept it? That's OK.
But we're not speaking the same language.

Also? Made no effort? Then what the hell was adding Erne, Perlini, Fabbri, Comrie? Signing Patrik Nemeth and Valterri Filppula?

How many of those moves came after Dec. 1?
Those were all low-effort, low-commitment deals.
For a reason.

Yzerman tanked.
Tanking was the right move.
Yzerman did the right thing by tanking.
I wish he would have stopped the bleeding in goal. But oh well.

And f*** yes journalists and fans are disgusted at fans cheering for a loss. I mean, that wasn't a couple of "woke" bloggers or the Mike Valenti's of the world. That was a whole stadium of fans actively rooting against their team. That is an embarrassment to the league.

Embarrassment? There's nothing embarrassing about fans rooting against their team.
f***. If Detroit and Ottawa were neck and neck for last place in the NHL standings, even with the convoluted lottery we have now, most of this board would be rooting for a loss if the two teams were facing off on the last day of the season.

Leagues don't want a scenario in which you have half the teams trying to compete and the other half racing to the bottom. That's why (in addition to wanting cost certainty) they fought so hard to install the salary cap. I'm sure that the NBA and MLB were wanting so very badly to prevent Houston, Florida, and Philadelphia from doing what they did.

Not a chance.
The only reason for the salary cap is profit.
Owners don't give a f*** about parity. That's just the shit they threw out for the hapless fans to cling to, and take their side in the lockouts.
The idea that the owners fought for the salary cap because they didn't want teams trying to finish last just doesn't have any basis in factual history.
In their parity arguments, they argued their teams were forced to suck because they couldn't keep up with the spending of the Big Market teams.

 

[MBH]

No, he did not have a choice. It's no act, it's a truth.
I do associate tanks with negative connotations, SO DOES THE ENTIRE NHL HENCE THE LOTTO.

Your connections aren't making much sense here.
The NHL views tanking as bad?
Here's a team that tanked:
The Washington Capitals of 03-04.
That season, they traded Robert Lang, Sergei Gonchar, Jaromir Jagr, Petr Bondra, Mike Grier, Steve Konowalchuk and Anson Carter.
They went from a 92-point season in 02-03, to 59 points in 03-04.
They spent two more years at 70 points and then improved to 94 points. Their worst point percentage since that 3-year drop was .561.

This year's Red Wings team dove from .451 to .275.
Nobody was EVEN CLOSE to us.
We didn't even have to make any effort for our tank, and we finished 23 points behind the second worst team in hockey.

The NHL doesn't hate tanks. They just don't reward them.

And here's the thing.
In the old days, you could tank. Spend 3 years in the basement, and if you drafted well and had some lucky, you were good to go in three years times.

Now, the Red Wings' tank is tied to this stupid f***ing lottery. And there's no telling how long this might take.
We've been bottom 5 three straight years and we have no reason to believe things are going to change in the next year or two.

The NHL is encouraging longer tanks - because teams have no sustainable way to improve. You can't spend your way out. Free agency is too expensive.

Unless you trade all of your assets for picks that pan out, all you can really do is draft/develop.

But asking you for examples has proven fruitless. It's because you can not back up your stance with them, nor facts.
The facts show that Detroit is very bad team. We can trace it all the way back to the 2010s. We can show, with examples and facts, exactly why the Wings are where they are and it has nothing to do with tanking.

But you do you man, I know I won't change your view.

"You do you."
It's a shame you go in this direction.

Here's the definition for you again

Tanking (sports) - Wikipedia

Yzerman intentionally iced a losing team.
It's what we all expected. Not this degree, I don't think.
It's what he told us was going to happen.
He didn't BS about it.
He tanked.

 

[Winger98]

any definition of tanking that equates it with rebuilding is a bad definition.

 

[Lil Sebastian Cossa]

Your connections aren't making much sense here.
The NHL views tanking as bad?
Here's a team that tanked:
The Washington Capitals of 03-04.
That season, they traded Robert Lang, Sergei Gonchar, Jaromir Jagr, Petr Bondra, Mike Grier, Steve Konowalchuk and Anson Carter.
They went from a 92-point season in 02-03, to 59 points in 03-04.
They spent two more years at 70 points and then improved to 94 points. Their worst point percentage since that 3-year drop was .561.

This year's Red Wings team dove from .451 to .275.
Nobody was EVEN CLOSE to us.
We didn't even have to make any effort for our tank, and we finished 23 points behind the second worst team in hockey.

The NHL doesn't hate tanks. They just don't reward them.

And here's the thing.
In the old days, you could tank. Spend 3 years in the basement, and if you drafted well and had some lucky, you were good to go in three years times.

Now, the Red Wings' tank is tied to this stupid f***ing lottery. And there's no telling how long this might take.
We've been bottom 5 three straight years and we have no reason to believe things are going to change in the next year or two.

The NHL is encouraging longer tanks - because teams have no sustainable way to improve. You can't spend your way out. Free agency is too expensive.

Unless you trade all of your assets for picks that pan out, all you can really do is draft/develop.




"You do you."
It's a shame you go in this direction.

Here's the definition for you again

Tanking (sports) - Wikipedia

Yzerman intentionally iced a losing team.
It's what we all expected. Not this degree, I don't think.
It's what he told us was going to happen.
He didn't BS about it.
He tanked.

Literally using Wikipedia as a source on what it is.

Tanking and rebuilding are not the same thing.

Tanking? It’s what Marcellus Wallace wants Butch to do in Pulp Fiction. Tanking is when you could be good but you decide to suck. There is nothing Detroit could have done within reason to be good in 19-20.

I couldn’t give any kind of crap less about Wikipedia’s definition of tanking. I could go on Wikipedia right now and change that if I wanted.

The Wings didn’t decide to suck. They had it forced upon them by guys aging out to retirement, declining physically so they are not NHL caliber players anymore (but still have long term deals) or goalies forgetting how to play the game of hockey.

And honestly... “what moves happened after Dec. 1?”. That’s when they dealt Saarijarvi for Comrie and then Comrie sucked so bad they waived him. Then a little bit later, they picked up Goloubef off waivers and Timashov off waivers. They tried calling up Lindstrom and kept Zadina up. They waived the broken down garbage that was Ericsson.

In season, it’s very difficult to improve your team with trades if you don’t have fungible assets. Detroit really didn’t have any that they had any appetite to trade or that would result in an improved roster.

Signing guys that are an improvement on your roster is difficult in season unless it’s a guy in a DeKeyser situation from 2013. That wasn’t available this year and even if it was, a guy like that isn’t considering Detroit in 19-20.

Yzerman made moves and took reasonable gambles. Only De La Rose for Fabbri really paid any dividends. And hell, Athanasiou and Green had 35 points combined in Detroit and then went on together to play 11 games and score 2 points in Edmonton, so let’s not act like they gave up anything of worth at the deadline.