Draft Pick

[Andy Pred 48 337]

I was just thinking that since the introduction of the cap system has supposedly put all teams on a level playing field, should the way the draft system is done be changed? I can understand that in years gone by the more richer teams

use to finish higher and so the weaker sides got the first pick of the new batch of talent on offer, to eventually give them better and stronger roster's. In this new cap era, I think that the way this is done should be changed. Finishing

lower in the overall standings shouldn't benefit you with a higher draft pick anymore. Everyteam started the season with the same budget and in my view whoever manage's that the best should get rewarded not penalised as is the case at present. The Penguins have been bottom feeders for the past few years, got themselves some top young players and now look set to be a force for a few years. You could say they timed it right ,not knowingly thou and by

this are going to benefit more than most whilst the cap is in place at its current state.

But I suppose how would you sort out the draft order would be a big issue. Final standings overall would be the easy way of doing it, but I would like it to somehow have a bearing on the season to. So I would have a seperate table with all teams gaing points in this way. I would award 2 points for a home win 1 point for a draw and 3 points for winning on the road. The score at the end of 3 periods would used for the table. No OT would be used and no points for losing a game. This may in effect finish not to different to the actual league but some teams will have higher points than teams

that finish higher in the official standings. For instance at present Calgary are 12th in the table with Tampa in 16th but in the draft table Tampa have 114 points to Calgary's 109. In effect it could mean 3 to 4 places higher in the draft, which in the 1st round could be very valuable. What thinks you all, should it be changed to be fairer or is it ok the way it is?

Yeah I was bored of all the Dats talk and just thought I would give you something else to rip apart

[grsbmd 0]

I think the current disparity in prospect talent is due to the fact that the cap was only recently introduced. With the league being so much closer, I think it won't be long until these things sort themselves out. I don't think we'll see many top caliber teams like Anaheim or Pittsburg having significantly better prospects than mediocre teams.

[betterREDthandead 58]

Convenient idea if you're a Wings fan, eh? Top draft picks every year to make sure the Wings are the best - forever.

Terrible idea, actually. I can't think of a better way to make sure talent NEVER gets distributed throughout the league. Three-quarters of the league will lose pretty much all their fans as it becomes abundantly clear that the same three or four teams are going to be the only ones to win the Cup ever.

[Andy Pred 48 337]

Convenient idea if you're a Wings fan, eh? Top draft picks every year to make sure the Wings are the best - forever.

Terrible idea, actually. I can't think of a better way to make sure talent NEVER gets distributed throughout the league. Three-quarters of the league will lose pretty much all their fans as it becomes abundantly clear that the same three or four teams are going to be the only ones to win the Cup ever.

But the cap was put in place to stop this happening, so why have a 2 pronged attack on those teams who do the better housekeeping and produce a better on ice product with the same budget as all the other teams? No this wasn't to get Detroit top picks all the time, or are you saying that the Wings are going to be in the elite branch anyway with the cap as it is? I just think the cap needs to compensate the draft system some how. Maybe throw all the teams in a hat and pick them out one by one, thats a fairer way as any I guess.

[RyanBarnes! 293]

I could be in favor of a system that allows more movement in the draft lottery, similar to the way it works for the top picks now. No team should be able to move up or down more than 5 spots though. It would work as a small compensation for the revenue sharing installed by the new CBA.

[Zburg40 0]

I am going with the Hat Idea but here is an idea For ever Loss Your team name goes in the hat and then pick. But the 5 worst teams got the top 5 picks so the best we could got is a 6th rounder and In the other rounds keep what we are doing now.

[Kp-Wings 3]

That would be too drastic a change. Like betterREDthandead already stated, the same 4 or 5 teams would be good every year, and the other 25 or so wouldn't. You would vastly have to over-value free agency, and given the CBA, that's kinda hard to do in this day and age.

On the other side, though, I'd like to point out something interesting. Sometimes, the best players in a draft ended up being taken lower down in the draft. For example, in the 1999 draft, I consider Martin Havlat the best player taken in that draft (by himself, together I would consider the Sedin twins the best selections), and he wasn't selected until the 26th selection. Before him were the mentioned Sedin twins, Tim Connolly, a couple of checking line forwards like Taylor Pyatt, Jamie Lundmark, Kris Beech, and Oleg Saprykin, and four half way decent defenseman in Branislav Mezei, David Tanabe, Barrat Jackman, and Nick Boynton. Other than that, you have a whole list of flops that were taken way higher up than Havlat.

If we were to go by the 1999 Draft, your plan would actually be a good idea for the bad teams. But still though, it is highly unlikely that a #26 overall selection will outplay half of the top 10 selections. It all goes by luck, and how the team that drafts a player develops them.