What if the draft went away?

[sessiroth]

I don't know about no draft but I do like the idea of selling players for $. Teams like Arizona and Ottawa might even make a profit if they sell of a superstar

 

[Bank Shot]

It's amazing how players accept the draft system as it is and aren't working towards eliminating it. The best young players and their talent is often being wasted in the first few years of their respective careers. They have no say where they want to play and are being thrown into some horrible teams who're competing in who'll lose the most games in order to have better chances of winning a lottery which'll determine who'll choose first! A lottery!

Meanwhile the salary cap makes sure you can't keep your best players because they want higher salaries as a consequence of how well they perform on the ice. As a result whole championship teams are being dismantled piece by piece so someone else who's done nothing in order to deserve good players and successful teams are being rewarded.

The whole system is ridiculous but it's just proof that you can actually sell anything to people who follow the sport in the US and Canada.

It's better for the fans.

Every team has a chance.

Compare that to European Soccer where whichever team is owned by the richest billionaire is championship level while other teams will never have a chance.

 

[Stubu]

No draft? I'll allow it if we combine KHL to NHL and go aggressive adding Chinese teams.

 

[TheOtherOne]

You should, considering you stated "if a team sucks because their owner is cheap, then I don't have any ****ing sympathy for them whatsoever." and then followed up with "The team's fans should strike and demand new ownership."

This was in response to someone pointing out that a cheap owner (or incompetent one for that matter) would not fare well under the system your suggesting for obvious reasons. Your suggestion for fans to "strike and demand new ownership" is a simplistic and unrealistic suggestion to that response.

So, I would like to see an actual solution to removing crappy/cheap owner under your structure other than "having fans strike for a new owner". I've seen a million ideas similar to yours tossed around the forums over the years, and we always hear how these types of systems would refine/remove bad owners and force them to spend and start operating more efficiently. I don't believe that to be the case at all, and the evidence to prove otherwise has literally been non-existent other than "it would just work because it does in my mind and that's how I want it to be" or "The team's fans should strike and demand new ownership".

In the current system, crappy owners aren't winning any Cups.
Under my system, crappy owners won't be winning any Cups.
Ideally, crappy owners shouldn't be winning any Cups.

What exactly is the problem here?

 

[Ted Hoffman]

None of these are happening in isolation within the context of our current system, so you can't evaluate them that way. And it's obviously not going to happen, because they'd need some fore-sight and guts. But this is the world i'm hockey czar.

Wait, you're the hockey czar? Oh, then that settles everything. I'm sure the owners will be totally fine with a hockey czar telling them "this is how everything is going to go, if you don't like it go f*** yourself."

Meanwhile, back in the real world, none of these are happening.

You're criticism's are stuck in the past. IE you're criticism of point 3 based on 93-94 precedence. Its largely irrelevant in a world with cost certainty for the owners.

It's not irrelevant to the members of the NHLPA who aren't going to be happy watching 18-year olds come in and collect massive paychecks based on nothing more than potential and the fuuuuuuuuuuuture. I've mentioned this a couple times now; the owners wanted a cap on ELC salaries, the union really wanted it.

The original point of ELCs and RFA systems is to slow down when players get paid, and in general keep salaries down, but it didn't work.

Not quite correct. The original point of ELCs was to limit how much got paid to players who hadn't proven anything. The point of the RFA system was to exercise control of the players for an extended period of time after ELCs ended. The fact that their salaries were lower than those of UFAs was more by chance, because nothing prevented owners from forking out big dollars to RFAs in the pre-cap world. Indeed, between arbitration awards and a handful of contracts the salaries of RFAs happened to drift upwards over time.

You know who was most opposed to RFAs getting big salaries? The older players, who never got the chance to get those big salaries themselves when they were younger and had to wait to become UFA to cash in at the bank. If they were really unconcerned about who was getting the money, they would have set things up to make it much easier for RFAs to get big paychecks years ago.

I grant you provision 4 is a weird one. Basically, the idea is you don't want every player signing their rights away the moment they hit 18, you want them signing when they are ready to move up without decimating the CHL/NCAA/European leagues. So if a players ready for the NHL, great sign them and play them in the NHL. But if it becomes clear they aren't ready, the NHL team can't stash them in the AHL without the players permission, but also isn't tied to them. The player becomes can head back to juniors, and try it again next summer. Or if the player agree's to play in the minor's they can. It's not a career ender, just because a player isn't ready at 18, doesn't mean they won't be at 19 or 20. It's also a provision that will inherently promote parity in that a cup contending team is less likely to give an 18/19 year old a lot of slack and willing to hand out those deals, somewhat pushing higher end talent to worse teams.

You keep ignoring the role the NHLPA is going to play in all of these decisions. [Well, unless you're going to keep pretending you're the "hockey czar" and are just going to tell everyone to hell with your opinions, I run this show.] I prefer to keep things at least semi-grounded in reality, and the reality is that the NHLPA isn't going to let 18-year olds get hung out to dry if [when] the vast majority of them get a contract offer, sign it, then don't crack an NHL roster. They're really not going to let an 18-year old get hung out to dry twice by teams and potentially end up with nothing to show for it all at age 20.

 

[Aceboogie]

Im probably the only other NO Draft Supporter on HF

Good to see another one of us

The only way to truly eliminate tanking

I havent read the thread but I can only imagine how many "bUt ToRoNtO anD NeW YoRk WoUlD sIgn aLl tHe toP PrOsPecTs" comment youve gotten

 

[Kamaya Painters]

It's better for the fans.

Every team has a chance.

Compare that to European Soccer where whichever team is owned by the richest billionaire is championship level while other teams will never have a chance.

The salary cap and draft system is better for the NHL-owners who don't have to invest particularly much money into their teams despite having zero competition from other leagues around the World. They basically get the best talent for free through the draft while the smaller teams in Europe (outside of Russia) are struggling to break even because the compensation is ridiculously low for the players that they've educated and produced. Smaller teams would still have a chance of winning the Stanley Cup in a league of 30-something teams. It's much, much harder for European football teams to achieve this success because they need to qualify for European competition through their own league before they're able to even compete with the best and this isn't guaranteed every year.

The level in the NHL would be better and the league itself would be more interesting with a bigger concentration of talent. People would surely like to see McDavid together with a pair of great wingers than the current crop. Just look at the excitement the North American team brought during World Cup 2016.

 

[Aceboogie]

My thoughts on the matter:

1. If a team wants to break the bank to sign a top 5 prospects to a mega contract, let them. Toronto can sign Mcdavid for 10 Mil as a 18 year old. But then you run the risk you sign a mega contract a get a Yakupov or Patrick

2. It opens up player movement around the league and allows for teams to rebuild faster. For example, 2 years ago, when Chicago was near there peak but looking at a long rebuild (thanks to multiple late 1st picks), they could have said "Lets trade Duncan Keith for alot, free up cap space, and then make a run at signing Dahlin in 2018. The rebuild now could potentially be over in 2 years. Instead, they have to bleed out slowly and take the longer road. On the flip side, a team like Edmonton (or the like) would have been way better off making a move for Keith because they need vets, not high picks

We dont trap elite talents in poor situations. Looking at you Edmonton/NYI/Buffalo etc

3. Like youve said multiple times, its takes all incentive away to tank or to keep bad management in place. Poorly run teams look bad to any free agent, meaning they have to pay more or not get them. Well run teams look appealing to free agents

No draft is pretty radical, so my first step is to get rid of the RFA system immediately. Which is totally broken. A top 3 scorer on a team should be paid as such, regardless of age

 

[Ted Hoffman]

It's amazing how players accept the draft system as it is and aren't working towards eliminating it. The best young players and their talent is often being wasted in the first few years of their respective careers.

We've gone kind of hyperbolic on the "best years" argument. It's now getting thrown around as if when a player hits 27, they're pretty much crap. Yes, a player's peak year is most likely to happen at 27 or younger - but they can still be fairly productive players into their mid-30s or later. Let's quit acting like half or more of a player's career production happens in the first 3-4 years of his pro/NHL career or so.

As to "why don't players get rid of the draft" - it's pretty simple. Other than the point about the NHLPA not wanting big dollars thrown at kids like I've mentioned a few times now, even the NHLPA recognizes that the league is not stable if a few teams have a direct pipeline to all the great young players and everyone else gets table scraps. That sets up the long-term scenario where only a few teams compete for the title and everyone else is hoping for a miracle. Fan interest wanes for teams that aren't successful, those teams get weaker, and get forced to shut the doors or find another place to operate. Neither of those are optimal for league stability or the financial well-being of the players. [Spoiler: players have lives, too. They don't want to have to pick up every couple of years looking for a new job and/or place to stay because their past team called it quits / relocated yet again].

The draft is the means by which talent is allocated around the league. You can argue about how it's done and whether there's better ways to do so, but the more one tries to create a system that "favors" certain teams [which always seem to be the case with these ideas; the beneficiaries always magically turn out to be the higher-revenue, more desirable ones and never the lower-revenue, less desirable ones], the more you set a league up for instability. And one thing advertisers, league partners, and governments hate is instability because it reduces incentives to participate with and help out member teams and the league as a whole.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

3. Like youve said multiple times, its takes all incentive away to tank or to keep bad management in place. Poorly run teams look bad to any free agent, meaning they have to pay more or not get them. Well run teams look appealing to free agents

No it doesn't. An owner that doesn't care isn't suddenly going to say wait a minute, there's no draft now? Shit, I gotta can my underachieving front office and get quality guys in here for a change! They still won't care, they'll probably just can the entire amateur scouting staff and look for other ways to be just as cheap.

And while top-tier free agents may not want to go to a poorly-run franchise, ... well, there's only about 720 or so spots available, and if you're a FA and couldn't find a landing spot somewhere else you're not going to spite yourself by saying eh, I'd rather go play in Europe for like $400K and miss out on all kinds of benefits I'd get here if I "only" took $3 million. If you're not going to do it, there's another guy of a similar talent level who gladly will.

 

[Bank Shot]

Smaller teams would still have a chance of winning the Stanley Cup in a league of 30-something teams. It's much, much harder for European football teams to achieve this success because they need to qualify for European competition through their own league before they're able to even compete with the best and this isn't guaranteed every year.

The level in the NHL would be better and the league itself would be more interesting with a bigger concentration of talent. People would surely like to see McDavid together with a pair of great wingers than the current crop. Just look at the excitement the North American team brought during World Cup 2016.

I doubt it. The English Premier League has been around in it's current format for 23 seasons.

3 clubs have won the Championships a combined 21 times. Man U has won 13 of those.

That is what you would see. McDavid and 10 other stars on the NYR. No fun for fans of the 25 teams that don't have infinite wealth.

You'd have to shorten the regular season down to about 20 games because anything more would just be a joke.
I don't see the appeal of that at all.

 

[Aceboogie]

No it doesn't. An owner that doesn't care isn't suddenly going to say wait a minute, there's no draft now? ****, I gotta can my underachieving front office and get quality guys in here for a change! They still won't care, they'll probably just can the entire amateur scouting staff and look for other ways to be just as cheap.

And while top-tier free agents may not want to go to a poorly-run franchise, ... well, there's only about 720 or so spots available, and if you're a FA and couldn't find a landing spot somewhere else you're not going to spite yourself by saying eh, I'd rather go play in Europe for like $400K and miss out on all kinds of benefits I'd get here if I "only" took $3 million. If you're not going to do it, there's another guy of a similar talent level who gladly will.

The draft provides a saftey net for ownership and bad decision making. Ownership that wants a top pick (which will create buzz and sell tickets) can fall ass backwards into the top pick. They line their pockets

No draft means if you run a horrible club, not only will good UFas avoid you, no picks will too. This will cause fan $ to dry up

And yeah sure, there are dozens (hundreds?) of UFAs who are similar skill level and will sign with any team for the money. But those players dont really make or break a team. Im talking about the actuall good UFAs, which there are a limited number of them. How many of them go to horribly run teams (without a massive overpay)

 

[Aceboogie]

We've gone kind of hyperbolic on the "best years" argument. It's now getting thrown around as if when a player hits 27, they're pretty much crap. Yes, a player's peak year is most likely to happen at 27 or younger - but they can still be fairly productive players into their mid-30s or later. Let's quit acting like half or more of a player's career production happens in the first 3-4 years of his pro/NHL career or so.

As to "why don't players get rid of the draft" - it's pretty simple. Other than the point about the NHLPA not wanting big dollars thrown at kids like I've mentioned a few times now, even the NHLPA recognizes that the league is not stable if a few teams have a direct pipeline to all the great young players and everyone else gets table scraps. That sets up the long-term scenario where only a few teams compete for the title and everyone else is hoping for a miracle. Fan interest wanes for teams that aren't successful, those teams get weaker, and get forced to shut the doors or find another place to operate. Neither of those are optimal for league stability or the financial well-being of the players. [Spoiler: players have lives, too. They don't want to have to pick up every couple of years looking for a new job and/or place to stay because their past team called it quits / relocated yet again].

The draft is the means by which talent is allocated around the league. You can argue about how it's done and whether there's better ways to do so, but the more one tries to create a system that "favors" certain teams [which always seem to be the case with these ideas; the beneficiaries always magically turn out to be the higher-revenue, more desirable ones and never the lower-revenue, less desirable ones], the more you set a league up for instability. And one thing advertisers, league partners, and governments hate is instability because it reduces incentives to participate with and help out member teams and the league as a whole.

I think your thinking of the No draft thing like Euro Soccer leagues. It wouldnt be, the NHL has a cap. With a cap, no few teams can have a direct monopoly on prospects (no direct pipeline). I mean, we already have a UFA system for pro players now and noone has issues. Why dont top teams have a pipeline for pro UFAs? The cap is the great equalizer. Its why a dog drap franchise like Edmonton can sign a top UFA like Lucic or Sekera (who was one of the top UFA D at the time) from a team like LA. Edmonton can overpay, they have the cap space. LA, while a vastly better run team and better city, is limited by the cap

The argument a few teams can sign all the top prospects is pure and simple hogwash not based in reality. It doesnt happen with the UFA regime now, so suddenly it would with prospects? I dont buy that

 

[Aceboogie]

I also have a hard time buying many NHLPA arguments. The NHLPA is made up mostly of vets, and those vets are looking out for other vets interests. Of the money going to the players, they want more going to the older guys since "theyve earned it." The NHLPA sold out young players with a pretty BS RFA system. Works out well for the owners and NHLPA though. Owners pay less money to younger players, vets ensure more of the cap space is going to players over age 27. Just neglects the fact that most teams scoring contribution comes from players under the age of 27

So of course the NHLPA would not be in favour of No Draft. Its means more money is going to younger players

 

[NoQuitInNewMexico]

I was expecting to laugh at all the bad posts in this thread but the Japanese baseball draft system actually sounds like a lot of fun. I think it would be better for NBA, though. Tanking isn't that brutal in the NHL. The 15-30 picks in the NHL are probably worth more. This is my first year in a while watching the Rangers as an actual Bad Team, but they still play decent hockey most nights.

 

[TheOtherOne]

I doubt it. The English Premier League has been around in it's current format for 23 seasons.

3 clubs have won the Championships a combined 21 times. Man U has won 13 of those.

That is what you would see. McDavid and 10 other stars on the NYR. No fun for fans of the 25 teams that don't have infinite wealth.

You'd have to shorten the regular season down to about 20 games because anything more would just be a joke.
I don't see the appeal of that at all.

I don't understand how you think NYR is going to manage to buy every good player in the league forever.

Right now the Red Wings are spending the maximum amount of money they are legally allowed to spend on players. Are they some kind of dream team?

If you offer the highest possible salaries to Matthews and Marner, you're going to have holes. And that's just TWO players, let alone 10. There's a lot more to being competitive than simply spending money. Try giving 10 million dollars to the 1oa for 5 years in a row. Ok you're going to have a dominant line (if you're not too unlucky) for 20 min per game and then what? 13 career AHLers at league minimum?

I mean do you REALLY, honestly believe there are 25 hockey cities that will be perpetually incapable of attracting any talent? In a salary cap league?

 

[BM14]

Rewarding mediocrity for the sake of parity is stupid.

I like this.

 

[Doctor No]

I don't understand how you think NYR is going to manage to buy every good player in the league forever.

I don't understand your responses, which all seem to be of the form of "the disparity won't be nearly as bad as you think it would be."

 

[compan]

I’d imagine this would create massive tryouts (invite only is assume) and all 31-32 teams would need to coordinate when theirs are.

 

[MrThomas]

I don't know if there are "drafting" in any other sports. There must be a reason for it. But the draft still works pretty fine in NHL. Still pretty weird that it's like a lottery...

 

[Bank Shot]

I
I mean do you REALLY, honestly believe there are 25 hockey cities that will be perpetually incapable of attracting any talent? In a salary cap league?

If we are talking salary cap still in place, a revamp of the system like you suggested would still reward locations that already have built in advantages.

Do you think a generational prospect like Crosby would ever go to a place like Pittsburgh ever again?

Teams in desirable locations whether in regards to fame/weather/tax breaks/travel would get an even bigger boost than they already have.

Other markets would suffer as they would have to overpay for prospects as well as free agents.

I don't see how that would be good for the health of the league as a whole.

 

[Aceboogie]

If we are talking salary cap still in place, a revamp of the system like you suggested would still reward locations that already have built in advantages.

Do you think a generational prospect like Crosby would ever go to a place like Pittsburgh ever again?

Teams in desirable locations whether in regards to fame/weather/tax breaks/travel would get an even bigger boost than they already have.

Other markets would suffer as they would have to overpay for prospects as well as free agents.

I don't see how that would be good for the health of the league as a whole.

This already happens with UFAs. Teams in less desirable cities just pay more. It's why Edmonton can win Lucic over LA

 

[Dogewow]

In the current system, crappy owners aren't winning any Cups.
Under my system, crappy owners won't be winning any Cups.
Ideally, crappy owners shouldn't be winning any Cups.

What exactly is the problem here?

The problem is that your system requires that owners throw as much money as possible at any star players not just to win the cup, but to be legitimately competitive. A team that doesn't have the ability (or is unwilling) to spend to the cap, or hand out max deals with financially creative structures is just flat out not going to succeed under the structure you're suggesting.

Having a cheap owner sucks, but at least under the current structure that has the draft, there are options to develop talent and retain it cheaply for a period of time. This adds a dynamic to the league that allows teams with fewer resources to be competitive. It also opens the door for players like Crosby/McDavid to sign in markets like Edmonton and Pittsburgh, who would otherwise have zero shot at signing these guys under your structure.

 

[IslesNorway]

If there was no draft it would require a total restructuring of the whole hockey system of North America. NHL teams would make Junior teams their farm teams for youth and they would compete heavily for talent from age 10-12 onwards, kinda like soccer. They would have to have literally hundreds of scouts all over NA to find talent to sign.

 

[DanM]

If we could not draft, I would want the cap gone. Drafting and developing is so key in a hard cap world.