The Silver Plan: A Draft Lottery Alternative

[GeeoffBrown]

I'd get rid of the lottery. Worst team gets #1 pick

The draft is meant to increase league parity by giving the worst teams the best young players

 

[Roomtemperature]

Don't we run into problems due to the NHL teams having played different amount of games played at any time? Like one teams is below the line the other above the line doesn't that confuse what to root for?

 

[Voodoo Child]

I like the effort put into the idea and all but honestly the draft should just be reverse-ranked (32nd overall = 1st overall) with a lottery where 31-24th can move up to 2nd, all with the same 12.5% odds.

And you can't pick 1st two years in a row.

Just KISS.

Oh and 'Tanking' - we talk and say all this, but do we have definitive, iron-clad, proof that would stand up in court that anyone has ever tanked? Just demote last year's 1st pick team into the 2-10 group.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Scenario B is a team that had hopes of the playoffs for a lot of the season, but has fallen off at the end (think Detroit or Utah).

It also gives fans of B teams a reason for engagement to never drop off like it normally would. Every team in the league playing meaningful games at the end of the year would be good for fans, media, coaches, players, and owners.

Your example kind of fails because Detroit has played competitive hockey and tried to win for 3 years and your system would pretty much screw them over (or at least not be a help) each time. Same with Philly who gets punished in your system for being a competitive team last season.

It's just too random to choose the last 20 games. It would be like deciding playoff seeding based on those games. Why play 82 games if then randomly decide 20 of them are more valuable?

 

[BKarchitect]

I'd get rid of the lottery. Worst team gets #1 pick

The draft is meant to increase league parity by giving the worst teams the best young players

Ironically I feel the opposite. The simple thing to do would be to go to flat odds for all non-playoff teams.

The draft should not be a tool for poorly run franchises to get out of jail year after year.

Flat lottery odds would take the incentive out of losing. If you aren’t trying to be a playoff team (ie ice a competitive product), then you get put into the same bucket as everybody else.

 

[MarkT]

Your example kind of fails because Detroit has played competitive hockey and tried to win for 3 years and your system would pretty much screw them over (or at least not be a help) each time. Same with Philly who gets punished in your system for being a competitive team last season.

It's just too random to choose the last 20 games. It would be like deciding playoff seeding based on those games. Why play 82 games if then randomly decide 20 of them are more valuable?

The current system punishes them every time. My system at least gives them a chance to earn a better draft pick by being competitive. Yes, last year Detroit and Philly played poorly at the end of the season, so they wouldn't have been rewarded, but teams like Pittsburgh and Minnesota, who ended strong, would have been rewarded. I'll admit the system does indeed punish some teams (Philly and Calgary) last season, but those teams earned that punishment through poor play at the end of the season. In any case, in the current system, the only possible "reward" is random chance, and an extremely small chance at that.

As for the randomness, the final 20 games in my system are not more valuable. Every game has the exact same value. All the system does is inverse which result produces that value. A loss in the first 62 games would have the exact same value as a win in the final 20. I admit there would be some randomness there in terms of scheduling and such, but I think 20 games is enough to even that out.

 

[bambamcam4ever]

I think this is an interesting idea, but I don't see the issue that this solves either. The players are still playing hard and the draft does what it's supposed to.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

Death, taxes, and HF members coming up with ever more convoluted ways to not give the worst teams the highest draft picks.

I’m not reading all that.

I missed the explanation: Why should the League's best young talent be wasted on the worst and least deserving team?

 

[loosemoose]

From a sporting integrity perspective, this is obviously significant improvement over the current model that actively incentivizes losing for teams. The players, especially the ones on long contracts know what the situation is. You can't tell me that David Pastrnak didn't essentially stop giving a damn post trade-deadline.

 

[GeeoffBrown]

Ironically I feel the opposite. The simple thing to do would be to go to flat odds for all non-playoff teams.

The draft should not be a tool for poorly run franchises to get out of jail year after year.

Flat lottery odds would take the incentive out of losing. If you aren’t trying to be a playoff team (ie ice a competitive product), then you get put into the same bucket as everybody else.

I guess at the end of the day, when you hand a team a McDavid or Crosby for free, it's difficult to balance. Although, most 1 overall are not this impactful

 

[SomeDude]

I missed the explanation: Why should the League's best young talent be wasted on the worst and least deserving team?

The whole point of a draft system is to direct the top picks to the lowest standing teams. If you want to argue for abolishing the draft and going back to a free agent system then that’s a whole other argument. As long as there is a draft, it’s counterproductive to try to find ways to punish teams in the lottery for said draft for finishing low in the standings. The NHL already addressed the teams that languish at the bottom by only allowing teams to win the lottery twice in a 5 year period.

 

[islandersbob]

interesting idea. some valid complaints in here that I think can be cleaned up with some simple fixes. First, I'd change the cut off from game 62 to game 41. Why? It should give fans reason to cheer for the team the whole season....who cheers for their team to lose by midseason for draft position, it's a long season anything can happen, 2019 St. Louis Blues for one. Secondly, strength of schedule, if it a thing, should balance out between first and second half of the season. Third, hot starts or hot finishes won't skew the data as much.

One idea that I have that can be tweaked, changed, expanded on, or whatever, is giving teams bonus Silver points for players that they trade. For example, Baseball and Football have a formula for handing out compensatory picks when a team loses a FA and most fans don't complain or even know how it works, so why not devise something to give out bonus points so teams can still be active at the trade deadline to improve for the future while still helping them with draft position.

 

[Ace]

There shouldn’t be a lottery. Many many many aspects of this league are rigged against some teams that have no other way of gathering top talent…and the draft is the only one they try to level the playing field on.

Eliminate NTCs. Fix RFA offer sheet compensation. Close the goddamned tax loopholes. A dozen more actual problems than bad teams getting good players which they can’t do in other ways because it’s rigged beyond comedy

 

[SomeDude]

So why not devise something to give out bonus points so teams can still be active at the trade deadline to improve for the future while still helping them with draft position.

Teams selling vets for futures is literally attempting to improve for the future. That is what happens now and is labeled as tanking and gets the collective panties bunched up by people who are mad those teams get high picks.

Comp picks for losing a player to free agency in other leagues is typically based on the salary of the player leaving.

Team that are having bad seasons typically reflect that in lost revenue from ticket sales and all that comes with not being good. No owner is going to add salary to a bad team for the sake of lottery odds. Professional sports is a business. It’s not just an on ice “fair is fair” for getting higher picks.

Teams that are perennially bad are punished in the same revenue loss unless they live in a market that isn’t phased by watching garbage. If that is the case, blame the consumer for continuing to pay for mediocrity.

 

[qcal1427]

Ironically I feel the opposite. The simple thing to do would be to go to flat odds for all non-playoff teams.

The draft should not be a tool for poorly run franchises to get out of jail year after year.

Flat lottery odds would take the incentive out of losing. If you aren’t trying to be a playoff team (ie ice a competitive product), then you get put into the same bucket as everybody else.

The best way to discourage tanking is to allow pathways for bad teams to turn the ship around quickly. The easiest way to do that is to provide them with first choice of young talent entering the league. If you flatten lottery odds the bad teams will still be bad, they will just be bad for longer.

Look at what has happened in the NBA

 

[sbhnur]

Really appreciate the time you put into this! Your idea isn't as bad as some guys judge, but there's a main point that make me totally disagree:

A really bad team that struggles throughout the season will likely have a very low total before game 63, and even a decent final stretch won’t help much. Meanwhile, a mediocre team that collapses late could still end up with a better draft position than a team that was consistently terrible. The worst teams may still not get the best draft picks, which undermines the point of the draft in helping weak teams improve.

So this can't be the solution of the issue. It might be impossible to create a totally fair and well-rounded concept in general.

If I look at the Flyers it shows the difficulty. They never were any good the last seasons but also they never tanked like others. They never picked high and weren't able to add good to elite talent until they got lucky when Michkov dropped bc of certain reasons.

 

[VivaLasVegas]

If you want to argue for abolishing the draft and going back to a free agent system then that’s a whole other argument.

Yep, that's me. Give the one-half of the teams who fail to make the playoffs some extra cap space instead.

 

[Mr Nogatco]

I'm struggling to understand how having more competitive hockey games is a silly concept.

The problem is that those competitive games among bottom feeders are coming at the expense of player/asset movement at the TDL.

I suspect you may have more support for your idea if you account for that. Or at least less detractors.

 

[Machinehead]

Why silver?

 

[Crazy8oooo]

Let’s punish teams for selling ufa’s to be, when they should be holding on to them to fight for silver points!

 

[MarkT]

interesting idea. some valid complaints in here that I think can be cleaned up with some simple fixes. First, I'd change the cut off from game 62 to game 41. Why? It should give fans reason to cheer for the team the whole season....who cheers for their team to lose by midseason for draft position, it's a long season anything can happen, 2019 St. Louis Blues for one. Secondly, strength of schedule, if it a thing, should balance out between first and second half of the season. Third, hot starts or hot finishes won't skew the data as much.

One idea that I have that can be tweaked, changed, expanded on, or whatever, is giving teams bonus Silver points for players that they trade. For example, Baseball and Football have a formula for handing out compensatory picks when a team loses a FA and most fans don't complain or even know how it works, so why not devise something to give out bonus points so teams can still be active at the trade deadline to improve for the future while still helping them with draft position.

I thought about moving it earlier, but then you would have the issue of really good teams that have a bad first half winning the first overall pick. With the cutoff at game 62, it all but guarantees that the bottom feeder teams will get the high picks.

Honestly, I'm not too worried about the strength of schedule issue. We already have this issue in the current system. At the end of the year, teams play games that are easier than they would be at the start of the year - games against teams that are checked out because they have nothing to play for. There's nothing in the system to compensate teams for this. I don't see why it's a big issue for this system but not the current one.

As for the bonus points, I think that would just overcomplicate the system. It would also be only impossible to come up with a balanced system - how do you measure the bonus? Would it just be based on cap hit?

Really appreciate the time you put into this! Your idea isn't as bad as some guys judge, but there's a main point that make me totally disagree:

A really bad team that struggles throughout the season will likely have a very low total before game 63, and even a decent final stretch won’t help much. Meanwhile, a mediocre team that collapses late could still end up with a better draft position than a team that was consistently terrible. The worst teams may still not get the best draft picks, which undermines the point of the draft in helping weak teams improve.

I'm not sure you understand the system here. If a team has a very low point total before game 63, that essentially secures them a great draft pick, because they have a head start on all the other teams. I'll give examples from last season:
Chicago and San Jose had 35 and 37 points at game 62. Ottawa had 54 points. Chicago and San Jose then went on to earn 17 and 10 Silver Points out of a potential 40. Ottawa earned 24 Silver Points. This resulted in final totals of Chicago (18), San Jose (27) and Ottawa (30). So even though Ottawa did much better than Chicago and San Jose, they were unable to catch them. To catch Chicago, Ottawa would have had to win 18 of 20 games. And if they did that I think we could say they earned that top pick.

The problem is that those competitive games among bottom feeders are coming at the expense of player/asset movement at the TDL.

I suspect you may have more support for your idea if you account for that. Or at least less detractors.

The Gold Plan has plenty of support (it was even implemented by the PWHL), and it has the exact same drawback. I just happen to believe that a league where every team has a reason to win at the end of the year is more important and compelling as a fan than an active trade deadline.

Why silver?

I originally envisioned this as an alternative to the Gold Plan.

 

[MarkT]

The whole point of a draft system is to direct the top picks to the lowest standing teams. If you want to argue for abolishing the draft and going back to a free agent system then that’s a whole other argument. As long as there is a draft, it’s counterproductive to try to find ways to punish teams in the lottery for said draft for finishing low in the standings. The NHL already addressed the teams that languish at the bottom by only allowing teams to win the lottery twice in a 5 year period.

Have you read post yet? If not, why do you keep commenting on the idea? The fact that you would describe it as a way to "punish teams in the lottery for said draft for finishing low in the standings" tells me you still haven't bothered to read it.

Since the OP is too long for you, I'll give you a hint at why your criticism is asinine. Last season under this system, Chicago and San Jose would have picked 1st and 2nd. Tell me again how the system punishes teams for finishing low in the standings?

 

[SomeDude]

Have you read post yet? If not, why do you keep commenting on the idea? The fact that you would describe it as a way to "punish teams in the lottery for said draft for finishing low in the standings" tells me you still haven't bothered to read it.

Since the OP is too long for you, I'll give you a hint at why your criticism is asinine. Last season under this system, Chicago and San Jose would have picked 1st and 2nd. Tell me again how the system punishes teams for finishing low in the standings?

I’m not commenting on your idea. As I said, your idea is overly complicated, convoluted and, in my opinion, not worth the time when there will be 20 similarly poor ideas and posts on the draft lottery before the end of summer.

I was replying to a question that someone asked me.

Instead of sending long winded PMs about how disgusted you are over the amount of likes my post mocking your idea received, and blaming my post for your idea being made fun of, maybe you should consider there is a reason myself…and many others…have said it is not a good idea.

 

[The Pale King]

I kinda like this idea. Not concerned about the lack of activity at the trade line. This year's biggest deals were between contending teams anyway.

But how would you account for a tanking team LTIR-ing Mark Stone until game 63 and then activating him?

 

[nturn06]

Please read my response to tarheelhockey above. You clearly don't understand the system.

I do understand the system. In this system, a team like Predators would be more or less guaranteed the first overall pick if their last 20 games include 6 or 7 games against Hawks and Sharks, and they would probably not be picking higher than 6th if their last 20 games are against Jets/Stars/Avalanches.

So, as I was saying, having a schedule which is heave in the first 3 quarters but easy in the last quarter would be the key for getting the #1 OA, while having a killer schedule in the last 20 games would make this impossible. The schedule would matter more than how bad the team actually is for getting a top pick.