How to prevent "Tanking" (by Shane Doan)

[RadioGaGa 162]

http://www2.tsn.ca/bardown/Story.aspx?Shane+Doan%27s+foolproof+solution+to+tanking&id=576818

 

I think this is a great idea. 

[raganblink 82]

This comes up every year and it'll never work because the idea is good but then you dig deeper and you realize its a terrible idea. If a team is truly god awful and needs the help, they're still going to lose those games. Even if they get 20 games to wrack up points, they may only get 8 points. They may play teams with a higher winning % then other teams in the league. For instance if 2 teams get eliminated with 20 games left, one team plays a bunch of less talented teams then the other one, and they will do better then the team that has tougher opponents.

 

Also two teams could be eliminated at the same day because a team ahead of them wins, but one team has another game in hand over the team, thus allowing them more chances to get points.

 

Or, lets say you have 2 teams, team A, who plays in the stacked Central, who plays a lot tougher central divisions team remaining. They have 20 games remaining, so they truly are bad at hockey this season. They get 7 points out of those last 20 games because a lot of their opponents are Central and Pacific teams. Then you have team B, who isn't terrible but they play in a less competitive division. They get eliminated with 4 games remaining. They win all 4 of those games, and boom, now they are going to draft better then the team that got hammered all season. 

 

The Wins after elimination is a great idea, but its just not practical with the varying schedules and teams that truly suck will continue to suck. 

[IPv6Freely 2094]

Definitely some issues that would need to be ironed out, but I do agree to some degree that I'd like to see some kind of incentive to win.

 

However, that kind of becomes pretty unfair to teams that aren't tanking and just genuinely stink.

[RadioGaGa 162]

What if there was a "Strength of Schedule" component. Points accumulated multiplied by SOS (I know the NFL uses strength of schedule somehow), so 10 points against weaker competition would be worth less than 10 points against harder competition.

[GreatestAmericanBeardo 258]

maybe more points for playing the spoiler to teams still "in the hunt"?  

 

any actuaries in the ModSquad to do REAL numbers on how this would work??  no discredit to you @raganblink you're putting up quality stats as the devil's advocate 

[chippa13 1844]

If a front office wants to throw away fan membership, gate and advertising dollars in their quest for the top pick then have at it. In the past tanking has nearly killed franchises. If some GM/President wants to do that then good luck to you.

 

Besides, it didn't work for Buffalo last year, they still missed out on the McDavid sweepstakes because of the draft lottery.

[Jason 65]

I kind of like the idea of taking the standings at the trade deadline and using that to determine the lottery odds. If they are going to keep the system the same as it is now, they need to change the odds even further than they did last year to make teams that finish higher get a better chance. It seems ridiculous to give a 20% chance to a team with 70 points and 5% to a team with 80. I think it could be more evenly spread.

[Chadd 916]

The "Doan plan" has been around for several years and is an interesting way of combating the type of tanking we saw for McDavid. There are going to be knocks against any plan, but that one seems reasonably fair when you consider everything in total. Anything that you do in an effort to reduce tanking is also going to reduce the chances of a really bad team getting a pick they truly deserve, so you do need to be careful with changes.  I think it would be a much bigger crime to give a team that missed the playoffs on the last day due to a tiebreaker (or something like that) the number one pick. I think allowing a team to fall farther from the top spot in the lottery would also help alleviate some tanking. It was an effective strategy for Buffalo, because they were guaranteed  a top two pick if they finished dead last and their consolation prize was Eichel. If they knew they could fall to three or four, that may have made them less likely to tank. 

 

Personally, I think the bigger issues are the multi-year tank jobs. Any time a team gets a number one pick, it should reduce their odds of getting another one for the next three years. Maybe 0% chance the year after, 50% reduction in lottery odds two years out and 25% reduction three years after they have the number one pick. 

[IPv6Freely 2094]

Completely agree with the last paragraph. 

[bnr032 11]

i would tend to agree aswell - there has to be some sort of penalty to continually tanking for he top draft pick.

I am not a fan of how the lottery only effects the top pick. I think the lowest 5 teams or what have you should be in the lottery for the top 5 picks. yes the lowest team have the highest chance, but its still a chance they could only end up with 5th pick. as you would have a seperate draw for each Pick. (obviously a team after they have been selected for there pick, are excluded from next round of lottery etc)