How would the league respond to a tanking team throwing a game?

[Hatter of the Beach]

Hypothetical: It's the last day of the regular season and the Sabers sit firmly tied with Phoenix for last place and best lottery odds. The Sabers have played a good game against their opponent, a playoff bound team secured in their seeding, and lead 3-2 with a few minutes to play. Suddenly, the coach receives a phone call during one of the last TV timeouts from the owner/GM; "Throw the game".

The Sabers then pull their goalie with a minute remaining and shoot it in their own net. They then repeat this.

While literally match fixing in the sense of losing the game, the Sabers played the majority of the game well enough to win. Aside from annoyance at their fan base (or happiness), and criticism from the Media, do you think the NHL would punish them with a loss of draft pick?

All just for fun to ponder btw, we all know the correct way to do this is to tell the AHL backup used in the last game to let in some softies near the end.

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[rent free]

the league would issue fines and maybe suspensions and buffalo could probably be forced to forfeit draft picks. they can't really do anything else.

 

[CantLoseWithMatthews]

Yes that's probably blatant enough to be punished. If they want to throw the game they'd need plausible deniability

 

[GoJetsGo55]

I would expect nothing less than losing their next 3 first round picks and a heavy fine.

 

[Rebels57]

Hypothetical: It's the last day of the regular season and the Sabers sit firmly tied with Phoenix for last place and best lottery odds. The Sabers have played a good game against their opponent, a playoff bound team secured in their seeding, and lead 3-2 with a few minutes to play. Suddenly, the coach receives a phone call during one of the last TV timeouts from the owner/GM; "Throw the game".

The Sabers then pull their goalie with a minute remaining and shoot it in their own net. They then repeat this.

While literally match fixing in the sense of losing the game, the Sabers played the majority of the game well enough to win. Aside from annoyance at their fan base (or happiness), and criticism from the Media, do you think the NHL would punish them with a loss of draft pick?

All just for fun to ponder btw, we all know the correct way to do this is to tell the AHL backup used in the last game to let in some softies near the end.

Yes I do think they would be punished.

 

[justafan22]

That would never happen, but I think a more probable hypothetical is this: The team who wants to tank rests most of their good players for the last game or two and then calls up a 3-4 AHL players (non propsects) and puts them in the lineup. That might get a look from the league but is the closest you can intentionally tank without scoring on yourself on purpose.

 

[Turning Mangiapanese]

That would never happen, but I think a more probable hypothetical is this: The team who wants to tank rests most of their good players for the last game or two and then calls up a 3-4 AHL players (non propsects) and puts them in the lineup. That might get a look from the league but is the closest you can intentionally tank without scoring on yourself on purpose.

This actually happens pretty much every year. Top guys are scratched due to "nagging injuries" (which is probably not even much of a lie at this point of the year) while some AHLers get a cup of coffee for a few games. Not a big deal IMO. If it's AHL 4th liners that get the callup instead of top guys, then yeah there might an eyebrow raised. Doubt Bettman would care to be honest.

The scenario outlined by OP is never going to happen, just because no NHL player or coach would ever agree to such shenanigans.

 

[Gnashville]

League would possibly take away a 1st round draft pick or assign them #31 as punishment thus rendering the intentional tank moot.

 

[cbcwpg]

Teams have come close to doing this.

April 6, 1980

Winnipeg Jets are fighting the Colorado Rockies for the 1st pick over all. As it turns out they are playing each other in the last game of the season. If the Jets win then Colorado gets the #1 pick ( which belongs to Montreal ). If the Jets lose they get the #1 pick.

So the Jets, in their best effort to "throw" the game put their worst goalie in the net hoping for a loss. No instructions to the players to lose, but with a statistical nightmare in the net, a better shot at it. It backfires, goalie stands on his head, and the Jets win and get the #2 pick.

 

[Daximus]

Teams have come close to doing this.

April 6, 1980

Winnipeg Jets are fighting the Colorado Rockies for the 1st pick over all. As it turns out they are playing each other in the last game of the season. If the Jets win then Colorado gets the #1 pick ( which belongs to Montreal ). If the Jets lose they get the #1 pick.

So the Jets, in their best effort to "throw" the game put their worst goalie in the net hoping for a loss. No instructions to the players to lose, but with a statistical nightmare in the net, a better shot at it. It backfires, goalie stands on his head, and the Jets win and get the #2 pick.

Interestingly enough it ended up working out in their favour because they avoided drafted Wickenheiser.

 

[Ceremony]

Excellent subtle work by the OP referring to Phoenix and Sabers

Really get under the skin of both fanbases, well done

 

[TheAngryHank]

The Wings could do this very thing without the phone call

 

[Uberdachen]

Hypothetical: It's the last day of the regular season and the Sabers sit firmly tied with Phoenix for last place and best lottery odds. The Sabers have played a good game against their opponent, a playoff bound team secured in their seeding, and lead 3-2 with a few minutes to play. Suddenly, the coach receives a phone call during one of the last TV timeouts from the owner/GM; "Throw the game".

The Sabers then pull their goalie with a minute remaining and shoot it in their own net. They then repeat this.

The referee waves the goal off and sends the offending coach to the box, where the old man inside slaps the coach's ballbag with his clipboard and lectures him with Werther's Original spittle about how people used to have self respect.

 

[CanadienShark]

The person who issues said order (or the scapegoat) would be suspended and/or removed by the league I assume. Something to the effect of damaging the league.

 

[Plural]

They would award the team with 3 points.

 

[roflstomper]

They would revoke all draft picks for 2018, fine the franchise 5 million dollars, suspend the players involved for a season and give a lifetime ban to whoever gave the order. You guys have no grasp of how serious an open violation of the integrity of the league like that would be.

 

[IWantSakicAsMyGM]

Anything that blatant would need a harsh punishment. But, giving all of your prospects ice time, "in order to properly evaluate what we have", would probably have the same effect, and falls in some grey area that is harder to call blatant tanking. I mean, the Avs started playing better when they gave all the youngsters ice time last season, and are much improved this year. Are we supposed to punish a team for trying to do the same?

 

[PattyLafontaine]

Wait the Habs aren’t tanking?

 

[Eddy Punch Clock]

An example would be made of said team and a record dollar amount of a fine would be issued... to the owners/management of course.

No fines for players. Players don't tank. Their bosses put them into positions to suck.

 

[BKIslandersFan]

Why would, for christ sake, would players help team tank so they can draft their potential replacement?

 

[M2Beezy]

Canucks are one step above what op is describing. This team is bad HELLA bad and sitting half their bad team to guarantee last place and a top 4 pick

 

[talkinaway]

No team would be dumb enough to tank that blatantly, and no player would be dumb enough to follow a coach's tanking orders and literally shoot into their own net.

Let's say you're on a losing team, and you're about to become a free agent going into next season. What's your endgame? What are you going to say to the GMs of other prospective teams when they ask you why you shot a puck into your own net? Or, even more subtly, even if you "dial it back a little" and are subtle about it, it's going to affect every one of your stats. You may get a spot on another club, but for less money, and on a club that's not as good of a contender the next year.

The standard's probably whether there's a reasonable explanation for a given "move". That's why you hear about "nagging injuries", most of which probably had some truth. It's a judgement call, and the coach/GM is within their rights to bench a player with an injury to prevent further aggravation of the injury that could affect the team later on. But there's usually no reason to order a player to shoot the puck into their own net, or to play five forwards during 5v5 instead of 3F, 2D.

The repercussions would probably be losing draft picks and a hefty fine to the GM and/or coach and/or player. And the erosion of fan confidence, which would affect revenue, which would make the downward spiral continue.

As an example, the Bruins are playing Florida on the day AFTER the day that was supposed to be the last day of the regular season, and I hope to hell the standings are fixed enough that they can call up players from Providence. Yes, that decreases their chance of winning the individual game, but it increases their chance of winning the Cup, because they have less recovery time than every other NHL team (well, besides the Panthers), and because they can rest good players and evaluate potential playoff call ups. But once the puck drops, I expect the players to play. They all individually want to show off to their own coach (and other coaches/GMs across the league) what they can do, so they can get better contracts.

 

[Bizz]

forfeiture of all draft lottery balls in the next draft for the first offense
2nd offense lose all first round picks
3rd offense lose all first and 2nd round picks
4th offense lose all picks
5th offense league intervention of the franchise. ownership, GM, and coaches permabanned from the NHL.

 

[Bizz]

Why would, for christ sake, would players help team tank so they can draft their potential replacement?

simple. they'll have value on another team that is looking to shamelessly throw games/tank.

 

[Tage2Tuch]

Well we didn't get punished for trading away our two goalies who were putting up great numbers at the time (Neuvirth and Enroth?) I believe for Johnson (who hadn't at this point done well with us or Calgary yet) among other noteable things during the 14-15 season..unless we actually did get punished by the league for losing out on McDavid (I'll never believe in most conspiracy theories though) ...but still, best consolation prize ever that year. Even if losing out on McDavid still hurts.