If you tank (which means that management virtually strips the team, because coaches and players will NEVER tank), what do you guarantee?
The Rangers and Jersey got lucky getting the first two picks. The others in the lottery got punched in the face, or at the very least probably didn't strike oil. How many of the other players taken in the next grouping would have been worth tanking for? Maybe Byram?
If you try and sabotage a season is Turcotte or Dach worth it? Very doubtful. Will they definitely be better than the guys taken after them? No one knows. Some of the other teams that picked in the next 10 will have accomplished nothing positive for their franchise. Only a franchise-level player might make it worth it to tank a franchise.
It's pretty easy to peg guys like Hughes and Kaako, but determining who will star among the next 15 players is pretty much a crapshoot.
Being terrible worked for Pitt and Chi, but there wasn't the same way of determining who gets what pick.
What Rangers management is attempting to is absolutely the right way to do it. Accumulate draft picks and use them to get players or more picks. I don't remember them ever developing a team this way.
They are also smart enough to know that you don't even consider tanking a season before it starts. You react to what you see over the first few months. Assess the assets on the team and in the pipeline and then act accordingly.
Calling for them to tank in July, to me, is absolutely idiotic.