fresh take on draft reform

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

my apologies if anyone has ever thought this solution before...

and now for consideration an idea I want to promote for public debate and eventual draft reform...

so, the draft is meant to reward incompetent teams and let them be competitive so that they dont become total black holes and weaken the league too much. bad teams eventually dont draw crowds either at home or on the road. it effects the pocket books. its important to make sure no team gets too bad

but remember... there is a cap. if bad teams get too bad, you can force them to raise the cap floor. if they cant afford it, you can force revenue sharing on the rich teams. the cap is an effective way to create parity {far more effective than the draft which is really a crap shoot anyhow. teams like Edmonton, Arizona, Carolina, islanders, and other mismanaged teams can draft top 10 for years and years and years and never turn around their fortunes}

why are we giving the poor teams in hockey the very best players?

here then is my idea

round 1 of draft... all teams are randomly put into a draw... the entire first round is randomly generated. odds are not effected by standings at all. everyone gets a chance at the popular players that fans want to see play.

round 2 of draft... all non playoff teams participate based on whoever finished worst to least worst

round 3- of draft... every team participates according to standings

so now we are rewarding the crap teams with a second round of drafting that ONLY they participate in. if they can identify good players they can help themselves. give them some incentive to stop being such incompetents. teach a man to fish.

theres still very little incentive to tank with my solution... if you want to really make sure no one tanks then tell the 3 worst teams that they cant draft in the top 3 picks of round I.

tanking to get the 33rd best player isnt a huge worry imho... there wont be any tanking

im a bruin fan and our owner/team pride refuses to tank... we will never be a bottom 3 team unless everyone gets fired. why should we be denied the next bobby orr? the rangers are getting their top 3 pick in history... is that fair? why should the crappiest teams in the crappiest markets or with the crappiest owners being run in the crappiest ways get all the best players to ruin?

thank god Mario got control of pittsburg when Crosby came along... or what might have happened there? did levalier actually fix the tampa problem or did they need new owners and then new owners again? has eric staal made the Carolina franchise a roaring success the past decade? did boumeester and Horton salvage florida?

how much success has hall and Hopkins and yakupov and the boys led oilers too {how much has McDavid and draisdailt done?}

its lucky for the league kane and toews went to a market like Chicago... its lucky that doughty ended up in LA... the league is better when markets like that get a guy they can use to sell tickets with and generate ratings with

im not suggesting to rig the draft so that star players go to the best markets... but why rig it so that they dont?

a lottery of the first round would generate tons of interest in the public... make trades more interesting because no one ever knows when they might be trading a top pick {I would outlaw the protection that teams stick on their trades}

honestly it just doesnt impress me when some team like Pittsburgh wins a few cups the next decade after having 4-5 top 5 picks in a 4-5 year period. show me how teams can kick and scratch their way to the championship and thats a story worth making a movie to tell

Click to read more...

 

[CraigsList]

Terrible idea.

You basically destroy the value of a first round pick.

 

[Pia8988]

Will never and should never happen

 

[Spazkat]

im not suggesting to rig the draft so that star players go to the best markets... but why rig it so that they dont?

The goal of the draft is parity. The NHL has zero interest in either teams staying in the basement forever because they were unlucky with the ping pong balls or in encouraging an exceptionally lucky team to accumulate all of the high end talent. As a matter of fact both of those are things they want to actively discourage

 

[NoQuitInNewMexico]

Let's get crazy, quoting an old post i made here a while ago

Someone mentioned a system along these lines in the last one of these threads and I'm gonna copycat it, though I'd say it's more applicable for NBA where you get 10 teams that are basically old Sabres/Oilers bad. I think he said the idea was based on the lottery rules in Japanese baseball.

- Draft lottery is replaced with a "bidding phase" - every team in the league has one bid they can use on one player
- All bids are weighted the same, no matter where you finish in the league
- Players are allocated to a randomly chosen bidding team. If you bid for Dahlin, you won't be very likely to get him. Maybe half the league bids for Dahlin. 1-in-15 chance. But if you love, idk, Ty Smith, you have him 4th on your board, you have a good shot.
- Teams that didn't get a player from the bidding phase complete the first round in the normal draft order. You're the worst team in the league, you wanted Dahlin, you didn't get him, maybe you pick 10th or 15th. Sucks, but you can still get a good player.

 

[Mickey Marner]

 

[swiftwin]

But what happens when the kid grows up, and the adult dies of old age?

 

[radapex]

if bad teams get too bad, you can force them to raise the cap floor.

They can't just arbitrarily raise the cap floor. It's defined in the CBA as to how the salary cap (ceiling) is calculated and, from that, the floor.

if they cant afford it, you can force revenue sharing on the rich teams.

There is revenue sharing in the NHL, so the richer teams are already subsidizing the poorer ones.

 

[Mickey Marner]

But what happens when the kid grows up, and the adult dies of old age?

We cremate the adult and put their remains in boxes for children to stand on.

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

They can't just arbitrarily raise the cap floor. It's defined in the CBA as to how the salary cap (ceiling) is calculated and, from that, the floor.



There is revenue sharing in the NHL, so the richer teams are already subsidizing the poorer ones.

and the players would oppose the cap floor being raised for what reason?

if the owners want parity... and want to force bad teams to improve... they could give more revenue sharing. they could raise the cap floor. its really their own choice. the players would never oppose either idea

 

[PAZ]

a lottery of the first round would generate tons of interest in the public... make trades more interesting because no one ever knows when they might be trading a top pick {I would outlaw the protection that teams stick on their trades}
l

Why stop at the prospect draft? I don't want to miss out on the next Bergeron/Marchand because a team lucked out and drafted him in the 2nd/3rd/4th round. A lottery of the whole league would generate tons of interest in the public... makes trade more interesting because no one ever knows where they will draft. Imagine Boston being able to pick up McDavid and how many jerseys they would sell in that year?

 

[Javaman]

The problem with the lottery isn't that too many teams tank for better odds. The problem with the lottery is that the same team can draft 1OA (or 2OA, or 3OA) multiple times in a relatively short period.

Tinkering with the odds does nothing to address this. As such, I reject any "solutions" that focus exclusively on adjusting the odds of winning the lottery.

Big picture, it's a good thing for NHL hockey if the worst teams have the best chance to upgrade their talent. But it's kinda silly for the NHL to rely so heavily upon probability to bring about parity.

To me, it's glaringly obvious that the NHL needs to introduce some rules that prevent a team from getting... oh I don't know... say, 4 first overall picks in 6 drafts.

 

[end]

"Just raise the cap floor" is nothing but "just print more money".

Forcing a team to pay more for the same players that were available to them does not make them a better team. Madness. If you got your way, you'd be complaining that the small markets and struggling franchises were artificially inflating player value as they overpay to make the floor. Sheer madness.

The star prospect thing is just naked acquisitiveness.

 

[radapex]

and the players would oppose the cap floor being raised for what reason?

if the owners want parity... and want to force bad teams to improve... they could give more revenue sharing. they could raise the cap floor. its really their own choice. the players would never oppose either idea

Because higher salaries means more money held in escrow, which means potentially more money they don't get back depending on how the league's revenues do.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Let’s award draft picks by team revenue.

Or better yet, at the end of the season hold a dispersal draft for the worst team. That’ll make sure that teams don’t tank, and all franchises will become above average.

 

[the_fan]

Just go back to the old rules, last place team gets the 1st pick period. Let teams tank it out if they want to. Actually it's not that bad seeing last place teams battle for the tank.

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

Because higher salaries means more money held in escrow, which means potentially more money they don't get back depending on how the league's revenues do.

you might have a point... but ultimately having a super show where all 32 teams are in this amazing draft would be a revenue generator... a cash cow. I suppose the owners could access a special fund to allow poor teams to have more money. if the will is there, the way will be found

there is an incentive for rich teams to not want suck teams. suck teams will kill sales where they come to town. being a good draw on the road is important.

at the end of the day I know why the owners want competition and parity. that said, the draft lottery is an unpopular compromise. guys like brian burke are going to complain but their solutions are going to be even more unpopular. my solution is radical but it will have very passionate fans. no one likes a radical change so the first reaction will be to poop on it. hopefully some people will pick it up like my suggestion to choose playoff opponents and eventually the talking heads will start to toss this idea around on the 24/7 sports channals

we shall see

 

[Alberta_OReilly_Fan]

The problem with the lottery isn't that too many teams tank for better odds. The problem with the lottery is that the same team can draft 1OA (or 2OA, or 3OA) multiple times in a relatively short period.

Tinkering with the odds does nothing to address this. As such, I reject any "solutions" that focus exclusively on adjusting the odds of winning the lottery.

Big picture, it's a good thing for NHL hockey if the worst teams have the best chance to upgrade their talent. But it's kinda silly for the NHL to rely so heavily upon probability to bring about parity.

To me, it's glaringly obvious that the NHL needs to introduce some rules that prevent a team from getting... oh I don't know... say, 4 first overall picks in 6 drafts.

did the 4 first oversalls in 6 drafts actually help the team win?

it did when Quebec/Colorado did it {but they traded sundin/Lindros/Nolan} right away before they won a thing

it did when Pittsburgh the gift {marc andre fleury. Jordan stall, ryan whitney/Crosby/malkin} did lead to immediate cup happiness and then somes success later too

were these situations created by a lottery though?

when Chicago got toews/kane/barker they were able to build on that... again I dont think the lottery influenced that

so... blaming the lottery for awarding 1 team a bunch of top picks doesnt see to really matter and wasnt unusual even in the old days

either adapt my idea to totally randomize all draft postions… or live with the reality that bad teams will get the best picks {and stay bad and keep getting the best picks sometimes}

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

Order the draft based on points accumulated after mathematical elimination. Bad teams will be eliminated earlier, therefore allowing them more chances to accumulate points, but it punishes them for completely gutting their team or "tanking" once eliminated.

 

[Makar Goes Fast]

what a great well thought out idea...

lol jk

 

[Bgav]

I puked

 

[radapex]

there is an incentive for rich teams to not want suck teams. suck teams will kill sales where they come to town. being a good draw on the road is important.

The incentive is that the owners of the 31 (soon to be 32) teams are literally the owners of the NHL. Their goal is to have 32 teams prospering, generating a ton of revenue for the league and launching the values of their franchises into the stratosphere.

 

[Sergei Shirokov]

Just only allow only the bottom 10 teams into the lottery for the first 2 picks.

Then allow all non-playoff teams to have a shot at the 3rd pick.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

But what happens when the kid grows up, and the adult dies of old age?

We cremate the adult and use them as fertilizer, the kid gets all the possessions of the deceased.

-- damn, ninja'd partially by the Monsieur.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

you might have a point... but ultimately having a super show where all 32 teams are in this amazing draft would be a revenue generator... a cash cow.

How? It's a 1-2 day event, and all anyone really cares about is the first day. You're not talking hundreds of millions of dollars in potential revenue; I don't know that you're even talking $5 million above what it currently generates. It would be a rounding error in the total for the entire year.

I suppose the owners could access a special fund to allow poor teams to have more money. if the will is there, the way will be found

There already is. It's called revenue sharing.

there is an incentive for rich teams to not want suck teams. suck teams will kill sales where they come to town. being a good draw on the road is important.

@KevFu had a pretty good post over in the Business of Hockey forum about the myth of various road teams being a draw to locations. Maybe he'll drop in and post a summary or link back to it. That said, I've uttered this line countless times and it's still true: this isn't Lake Wobegone - not every team can be "above average." For every good team, there's going to be a bad team. Don't want bad teams? Figure out some way to get everyone clustered between about 75-90 points in the standings [ignoring OTLs] from year-to-year. Don't want that? Then accept that inevitably, some teams are going to suck - and some of them are probably going to suck for more than a year or two, just like some teams are going to be really good for more than a year or two.

at the end of the day I know why the owners want competition and parity. that said, the draft lottery is an unpopular compromise. guys like brian burke are going to complain but their solutions are going to be even more unpopular. my solution is radical but it will have very passionate fans. no one likes a radical change so the first reaction will be to poop on it. hopefully some people will pick it up like my suggestion to choose playoff opponents and eventually the talking heads will start to toss this idea around on the 24/7 sports channals

Actually, it's the fans that have the biggest issue with how the draft work because they have a weird sense of "fairness." Most rational people looked at the results from last night and said, "you know what, this has gone too far, this makes no sense, we're unintentionally punishing legitimately bad teams that need help because we overreacted about maybe teams being bad on purpose." Radical change is one thing; radical change that makes zero sense is another.