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Why are fans so obsessed with "no tanking"? Who cares? We tanked and literally everyone was in favor of it. Chicago does it, and gets luckier in the lottery, and now we have to regurgitate this same "tanking is bad" narrative again. Most rebuilding teams tank. We did, Edmonton did, Ottawa did, Buffalo did, Arizona perpetually tanks. Why do we have to have the most convoluted draft order of any major professional sport to combat something that pretty much everyone (except Gary Bettman) agrees is good to do once in a while? Just do reverse draft order and if teams like Edmonton want to be bad for 15 years in hopes of landing a McDavid one day, more power to them. Meanwhile a lot of non-McDavid teams are out there competing for and winning Cups. If nothing else this year's playoffs has shown that generational guys don't really make your team more competitive. Seattle has no players of that caliber. Vegas has a few high end guys, all of whom they traded for, and none of whom required winning the lottery. Same for Florida, Carolina, and Dallas. Edmonton, Jersey, and TO are the only teams that A) tanked, B) won the draft lottery, and C) are still playing hockey. And none of them are performing well enough to suggest that this strategy is some sure fire way to build a winner.

People can't even keep their idiotic conspiracies straight anymore. I just saw fans online wisecracking that the league would have a meltdown if Seattle or Vegas ended up playing Florida or Carolina in the finals. As if Gary Bettman spend the last 30 years expanding the NHL into non-traditional markets only to be agitated when the plan finally bears fruit. Likewise, fans think that the league conspired to rig the lottery to give a generational talent to a team that has no problem selling tickets or getting national exposure without him. The NHL has revenue sharing. Why on earth would they want to send Bedard to a team that generates massive amounts of revenue without him? Wouldn't they want to send him to a team that doesn't generate revenue, hope he increases ticket and merch sales, and then split that new money amongst themselves?

The league should do without the lottery and do something like base the draft order on the overall standings of the most recent 3 seasons combined. As well as not allowing any team to get a top pick in consecutive seasons. I'm sure this idea can be poked full of holes with more thought than the 30 seconds I have thought about it, but I feel it limits tanking, as it would be financially insane to tank for three straight seasons. Could very well be a stupid idea, but something to rant about I guess.

Friedman on 32 thoughts: Other teams literally think it's rigged

Combos seem made up. Whole thing was predetermined 100.

Only thing I can think of is that he doesn't really fit in an up tempo, transition based, offense like Jersey has. He's lethal off the cycle, and it seems like that's when he's most effective. But that isn't really Jersey's thing. Regardless, he's been bad. 1 goals in 9 games. And his qualifying offer is MASSIVE. This is not as clear cut a decision for Jersey as it might have seemed at the trade deadline.

I like the idea of factoring the last few years, it would keep teams from going to the finals one year and then getting the first round pick the next year (MTL 21, 22). Or teams having one down year, getting lucky in the lotto and adding a high pick to an already good roster (NYR 20). It would help out the the teams that have been struggling for a while instead of teams that have just had a bad year.

not gonna happen. 94 Wings completely sharted against the sharks after a killer reg season. Then what happened? Stanley Cup series 3 of the next 4 years. Boston aint on the upswing like we were, but they aint dead yet either.

They still have nothing down the middle. And no assets to make big trades. Trading Ulmark allows them to fill 10 roster spots for little more than the league minimum. Unless Bergeron and Krejci give it another year, it's pretty bleak.

Phase 1: Draft Phase 2: Creative building (you are here) Phase 3: Supplimentary building Phase 4: Cup runs Well we didnt win (again) the lottery. And I think thats the last time you will see us in any real position to win the lottery again for a while. It is what it is. The drafting phase of the yzerplan, IMO, is therefore ending at this draft. After this we will back to the 12-20 range. Even with no lottery wins we did pretty good. 2 blue chip Dmen. 2 blue chip forwards. 1 blue chip goalie. Another 1 or 2 blue chips this year. And we have an imploding bostons 1st rounder next year. Plus a myriad of other B grade players. But this should now start the shift towards what I call "the creative building stage". We may still sell at the TDL, but this is no longer a lottery team at this point. We have 2 more major foundational pieces joining the roster in Ed and Kasper this season. And impending major extensions to Ras, Ray, and Seider looming. SY will no longer be uber cap rich very soon and we wont be able to go on massive spending sprees like last year. So I think we are entering the creative building stage. Trades, offersheets, you name it. Time to trade a Drouin for a Sergachev. What can we pick off Bostons corpse? Torontos? Winnipegs? Islanders? Can we trade Zadina for a bottom 6er we actually like? Can we package some prospects for a top player in their early 20s? Once we can age up and wheel or deal our way out of mediocrity, then we enter the next phase of the yzerplan.

they also have over 4 mil in cap penalties for Bergeron and Krejci contracts. The latter of which they will also likely lose this summer. They won't have a top 6 center and will have about 6 mil to fill half of an entire roster. It's much more bleak than you make it seem. They have to move salary and litter their roster with league min contracts. 10 roster spots to be filled with ~6 million. gl;hf. Their goalie duo will likely have to be broken up. So trade their Vezina season goalie or lose the promising young gun. While I don't forsee them being a basement team yet, a bottom 10 finish is very possible.