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Saskleaf

Go leafs go
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Forum: NHLMar. 20 at 3:54 p.m.
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>NorthernLeafsFan05</b></div><div>Its really not though. The worst teams in the league are the ones that get eliminated from playoff contention first. Those first few teams have a tremendous headstart on other teams. I detest the idea of having to watch ~20 games of a team that has literally zero reason to be playing</div></div>

This also spreads out the excitement of the draft lottery (30 minutes even when it's dragged out as reality TV) across the entire stretch run at the end of March/early April.

Teams at the top of the standings take a much earned rest, or play for seeding, but fans of bad teams are scoreboard watching, invested in other games, just as they would if they were fighting for a playoff spot.

Anyways, take the worst team to complete a season (sorry 2019-20 Wings) in the post-lockout NHL: The 2016-17 Avalanche
Even in a very strange year, standings-wise, where the West had a large gap between the 8 playoff teams and the 6(!) non-playoff teams, so all Western teams were being eliminated unusually early, that Colorado team still picks 4th, exactly where they picked under the lottery system, even though they had a dreadful 0.219 points percentage after their elimination, <strong>the truly awful teams get eliminated early enough to accumulate enough points to pick high in the draft anyways, and there is never an incentive for the GM to tank.</strong>
Winnipeg's 6 game winning streak to end the season after they had been eliminated, instead of actively hurting them by lowering their draft pick from 8 to 13 (after lotteries and Vegas), would have given them the first overall pick. Conversely, Vancouver's 1-8-0 performance after elimination should not have helped them move up the draft board.

2017 Draft Order, Gold System, not including Vegas or lotteries in comparisons
Winnipeg, up from 11th (12 points in 6 games)
Arizona, steady at 2nd (9 points in 10 games)
Los Angeles, up from 9th (9 points in 7 games)
Colorado, down from 1st (7 points in 16(!) games)
Dallas, up from 7th (6 points in 7 games)
Detroit, steady at 6th (5 points in 6 games)
New Jersey, down from 4th (4 points in 8 games)
Florida, steady at 8th (4 points in 5 games)
Philadelphia, up from 12th (4 points in 3 games)
Carolina, steady at 10th (3 points in 4 games)
Vancouver, down from 2nd (2 points in 9 games)
Buffalo, down from 5th (2 points in 5 games)
Tampa Bay, steady at 13th (2 points in 1 game)
Islanders, steady at 14th (2 points in 1 game)
Forum: NHLMar. 20 at 2:50 p.m.
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>ricochetii</b></div><div><strong>I'm in favor of anti-tanking measures but having the bottom teams fight for points further disadvantages the worst teams.</strong>

My idea is weighting lottery odds by quarter. The final quarter would have the least impact on draft position.
Prevents bubble teams or teams that are heavy sellers, from bombing down to the bottom of the pack after the trade deadline.
Teams that were bad since the first game of the season would have higher odds earned through the earlier part of the season.

Another idea is to link lottery odds with cap usage. If you didn't spend to the cap because you never intended to compete this season, your lottery odds would be lowered.
That may result in some extravagant payments on 1 year terms to avoid those lottery penalties, but it also limits how much a team is willing to sell off at the deadline without taking cap back.
Calgary was a cap team and tried to make the playoffs all season. They moved out a few players and significant salary. They already gained draft capital and prospects from those moves.
They don't need the added benefit of better lottery odds if they bottom out after the fact.

Some minor adjustments to lottery odds can be used as anti-tanking measures without completely basing draft position on post-deadline performance.
The idea has never been to reward incompetence, but to buoy teams who need the talent most.
The most evident methods of tanking are not spending competitively and unloading players so you are less able to ice a competitive team.
Those are the things that should negatively impact your lottery odds.</div></div>

Its really not though. The worst teams in the league are the ones that get eliminated from playoff contention first. Those first few teams have a tremendous headstart on other teams. I detest the idea of having to watch ~20 games of a team that has literally zero reason to be playing
Forum: NHLMar. 20 at 1:25 p.m.
I wonder after a few more expansions, let’s say 5 years from now there’s 2-4 new teams:

You’re going to get more extremes on the edges. From the draft’s perspective, a few teams that can choose to really avoid the draft entirely, never intending to bring any drafted player along (Vegas except a more so) and you will also have teams on the opposite of the spectrum (Arizona whether they like it or not), where they have multiple teams worth of prospects under their control. It will be interesting to see if those teams in the fringe own their role and fully leverage the benefits of the choice, some becoming amazing at development, others at contract management.

From a selfish perspective, if I were the league, I’d do whatever I could to get big names to big markets. That’s my motivation I’d have if I adjusted the lottery. I’d flat out rig it and tell everybody they’re going to make more money my way. I’d be shocked if this wasn’t how it was as is. It’s common sense. The nhl is the circus with ice instead of elephants. They can’t let places like Chicago be money pits, they’re the income source.

The rangers, bruins, kings, Canadian clubs in general, etc need to have great players for the overall system to be healthy. If that means they strip it down like Chicago, and can get a few extreme picks in the process with assurity, fine: they can plan and get the outcome they desire.

I absolutely don’t enjoy it from the perspective of being a blues fan, but the league is currently playing games in a 2000 seat stadium, talking about substantial expansion…. Not things you’d associate with financial health.

The league should have a clear path and process to get millions of people in the largest cities to give the nhl money.

This kinda stuff doesn’t matter as much when you’re a 6 team league in interesting cities. This kinda stuff does matter when any given off season your team is offering 100 mil contracts to players.
Forum: NHLMar. 20 at 1:49 p.m.
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>CantStopWontStop</b></div><div>I wonder after a few more expansions, let’s say 5 years from now there’s 2-4 new teams:

You’re going to get more extremes on the edges. From the draft’s perspective, a few teams that can choose to really avoid the draft entirely, never intending to bring any drafted player along (Vegas except a more so) and you will also have teams on the opposite of the spectrum (Arizona whether they like it or not), where they have multiple teams worth of prospects under their control. It will be interesting to see if those teams in the fringe own their role and fully leverage the benefits of the choice, some becoming amazing at development, others at contract management.

From a selfish perspective, if I were the league, I’d do whatever I could to get big names to big markets. That’s my motivation I’d have if I adjusted the lottery. I’d flat out rig it and tell everybody they’re going to make more money my way. I’d be shocked if this wasn’t how it was as is. It’s common sense. The nhl is the circus with ice instead of elephants. They can’t let places like Chicago be money pits, they’re the income source.

The rangers, bruins, kings, Canadian clubs in general, etc need to have great players for the overall system to be healthy. If that means they strip it down like Chicago, and can get a few extreme picks in the process with assurity, fine: they can plan and get the outcome they desire.

I absolutely don’t enjoy it from the perspective of being a blues fan, but the league is currently playing games in a 2000 seat stadium, talking about substantial expansion…. Not things you’d associate with financial health.

The league should have a clear path and process to get millions of people in the largest cities to give the nhl money.

This kinda stuff doesn’t matter as much when you’re a 6 team league in interesting cities. This kinda stuff does matter when any given off season your team is offering 100 mil contracts to players.</div></div>

I just don't get why people think the league will rig it for Canadian teams?

Bettman's goal was and always will be: Grow the market in the US, that doesn't happen if Canadian teams get all the star power...

That's the reason why AZ's still playing in AZ and Toronto doesn't have a second team despite them being the most valuable franchise in the NHL with 9 million people (such a huge finical opportunity)
Forum: NHLMar. 20 at 11:35 a.m.
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>HockeyScotty</b></div><div>I am 100% behind this idea too for the draft pick.

The negatives I heard in the NHL media was that it would diminish the trade deadline; but I think the opposite is true. The teams at the bottom would become very active buyers too in order to improve their team and try and win games.

What this would do I think is reduce the chances of good players taking "bargain deals" to play for a bottom tier team hoping to get dealt at the deadline. Vets might sit out the summer free agency and then pick and choose which team to sign with after a few months of the regular season to ensure they picked a contender. This would only be a handful of players every year (ala Zach Parise) so don't think it's a big concern.

But teams like Chicago, San Jose, etc could then go after high salary guys that are "cap dumps" from contenders more often to increase their chances of winning games. It would almost be like players getting "loaned" to them. For example, Washington could have loaned Kuznetsov to San Jose at full cap hit instead of retaining and then used that cap space bring in someone like Tomas Hertl to help their own playoff chances.

Fans of tanking teamswould have renewed enthusiasm for the back half of the season and I think we would see less "strip it to the studs" rebuilds and more remodels/retool types of roster construction by GMs.</div></div>

I'm in favor of anti-tanking measures but having the bottom teams fight for points further disadvantages the worst teams.

My idea is weighting lottery odds by quarter. The final quarter would have the least impact on draft position.
Prevents bubble teams or teams that are heavy sellers, from bombing down to the bottom of the pack after the trade deadline.
Teams that were bad since the first game of the season would have higher odds earned through the earlier part of the season.

Another idea is to link lottery odds with cap usage. If you didn't spend to the cap because you never intended to compete this season, your lottery odds would be lowered.
That may result in some extravagant payments on 1 year terms to avoid those lottery penalties, but it also limits how much a team is willing to sell off at the deadline without taking cap back.
Calgary was a cap team and tried to make the playoffs all season. They moved out a few players and significant salary. They already gained draft capital and prospects from those moves.
They don't need the added benefit of better lottery odds if they bottom out after the fact.

Some minor adjustments to lottery odds can be used as anti-tanking measures without completely basing draft position on post-deadline performance.
The idea has never been to reward incompetence, but to buoy teams who need the talent most.
The most evident methods of tanking are not spending competitively and unloading players so you are less able to ice a competitive team.
Those are the things that should negatively impact your lottery odds.
Forum: Toronto Maple LeafsMar. 19 at 7:57 a.m.
Forum: NHLMar. 15 at 1:56 p.m.
Forum: NHLMar. 15 at 8:43 a.m.
<div class="quote"><div class="quote_t">Quoting: <b>Saskleaf</b></div><div>It’s not a completely crazy thing to ask, no, but he’s definitely not having a better season than any of Hellebuyuk, Swayman, Bobrovsky or Demko</div></div>

Depending on your measuring stick, Binnington is doing great / Cam Talbot and he finish off the group you’ve named.

But similar to mackinnon for forwards, Hellebyuck is waaay ahead, off the chart so to say, for goalie performance.

For example, Hellebyuck doubles binningtons goals saved above expected, leads in quality saves, and is right below McDavid in point shares. As expected, all the things those stats derive from, he’s leading, and has the accumulation stats like save percentage, where he leads among 1as. (Stolarz ahead with 21 starts).

A really outstanding season and you don’t hear much about it at all. I’d also suggest while the jets defense is good and balanced, it is not a premier squad relative to other teams. Perhaps one benefit they have is a lack of a river boat gambler, but I don’t think I look at their squad and system and think that it’s responsible for the goalies performance.

I think the one area binnington shines, and could catch up is that stl is HORRIBLE at puck possession. (About the same as Chicago). If binnington can go on a heater to end the season, I think he can win the Vezina, because stl plays in a way that binningtons performance will have an outsized impact on his season stats. (More high danger shots against = more chances to make high danger saves). He’s currently 4th in total shots against, so the opportunity is there.
Forum: NHLMar. 15 at 9:31 a.m.