Quoting: A2023tdlGuesses
I wonder if Bettman can ever fix tanking.
I was just thinking: drafting first overall, especially when there is a clear cut top center at the very top, has to be worth over 100 million dollars. Between merchandise, advertising, attendance - I mean it’s fair to say whichever owner retains the rights to Connor Bedard is probably guaranteed 100 million dollars or more in additional profit over the next 10 years. Maybe double that.
Bettman should embrace the tank.
Wait, what?
Yes.
How?
Have a tournament during the Stanley cup playoffs where the winner gets the first overall pick. All the losers play a best of 3 series in bracket style. “Doesn’t that hurt the worst teams?” My response - Are they the worst teams because being the worst has benefits now? Draft picks go in order of elimination from said tournament. If you get blown out in round one, enjoy pick 16. Be better at hockey. 16 isn’t trash.
This would make the league more competitive on any given regular season night. Stop rewarding failure. Soccer teams get relegated, not 100 million dollars. The worst team in the league shouldn’t get rewarded more than the cup winner. A cup is priceless, but from an owners perspective it sure as hell isn’t worth 100 mil.
They've already taken steps with lottery restrictions and odds. Maybe they don't go far enough, but there's still no incentive to hold onto expiring assets at the trade deadline if you are projecting to be out of the playoff picture. The only way to deter tanking outside of the lottery, is to push the "finish line" further into the season to reduce the number of teams engaging in roster deconstruction at the deadline.
The cap helps with parity and is supposed to make teams closer in terms of ability to compete, so that there is a lot of potential for movement in the standings until the last possible minute. The sooner the games cease to matter, the less engagement and more teams drop out of even attempting to overcome a standings deficit.
You could set the lotto positions at an earlier date and then have odds adjust based on performance from that point. Rewarding teams that are still fighting to compete with better odds, while those that "embrace the tank" see their odds reduced, and/or you could just have a full lottery instead of 2 picks and/or make the difference in odds less substantial so there's less of a fight to be the worst.
The cap needs to apply equally to all teams before any of that really matters however. You can't have exchange rates, different tax rules, LTIR shenanigans, etc. and expect a level playing field.
You also can't have a continuous stream of "cap dump" contracts floating around the league. Maybe lower term to 5 years, don't allow contracts to extend through 35 years old, give teams less cap penalties for buyouts, etc.
You can't have Canadian funds propping up a team like Arizona, while Florida and Tampa are getting players at a discount because of no state tax. That's not a level playing field. Every player should be getting the same take home portion of their contract regardless of where they are playing.
The schedule isn't balanced either, intentionally to highlight "rivalries", so not everyone is facing the same quality of competition. You'll never have parity if teams aren't playing each other an equal number of times.