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TORONTO – Ideas have been circulating in the hockey world for years about how to correct the draw. Of course, the most prudent way to settle the project would be to eliminate it completely.
Wait wait! That means, however, that Connor McDavid and Jack Eichel could both have signed with the Maple Leafs in 2015, or that Auston Matthews and Patrik Laine would both have signed with the Maple Leafs in 2016, or that Taylor Hall and Tyler Seguin would both signed with the Maple Leafs in 2010.
Or that Hugh Jessiman and Robert Nilsson could both have signed with the Rangers in 2003, and how much would it have been fair for the rest of the league?
But no. Rules would be attached to the deletion of the draft, for example that which would limit the maximum number of novice level contracts to one per team per year, with a graduated scale for the second player, then the third, etc. therefore, would start at age 18, and no, well, the auctions are actually minimal for players these days, due to the dramatic increase in the number of second contracts and the decrease in the number of free agents .
If the league thinks that the project offers excellent visibility, if our friends whose motto is the loonies and toonies (no, these are not references to Brad Marchand and Tom Wilson) think that the trade deadline must be declared National Day, imagine the frenzy created by a regulated free market in which the best young people in the world aged 18 were present.
This, of course, is pure fantasy. The draft will not be eliminated. But an old idea that would solve the tank problem resurfaced this week when the highly respected Shane Doan, now affiliated with the league, suggested (as he did when he was still playing) to create a competition for first place in the standings general. teams eliminated from the playoffs.
Doan essentially endorsed the Gold Plan, as it had been presented by Andrew Gold at the 2012 Sloan Analytics conference, according to which the project's order would be determined by the number of points earned by the teams after their elimination from the playoffs. Indeed, it would be a derby of consolation.
There is a lot to like about it. First, the reward of being as ugly as possible would no longer exist. Secondly, weeks of terrible and meaningless games that tax the soul would be replaced by weeks of meaningful games. Admittedly, the entertainment quotient would increase and the motivation of the teams to lose games would be erased. These are good things.
But a change like this would basically apply to how out-of-race teams would take care of their business by the deadline. Teams would actually be penalized for exchanging their impending free agents without restriction against selections and prospects. Teams would have less reason to give young people time to play. The reconstruction process would become even more difficult than today.
In addition, teams would be encouraged to sign selections or free unwritten agents and have them engraved the first year of their contracts. If this system had been put in place, the Rangers, for example, would have been encouraged to bring Vitali Kravtsov here without worrying about future consequences.
Also, this: So, in this imaginary world, the Rangers guard Kevin Hayes and Mats Zuccarello. As stand-alone players waiting, they would put their bodies in play so that the team with which they would probably not be with next season gets a better choice. Rhetorical question.
I am in favor of giving each non-playoff team the same chance of being first overall. I'm for, and I can not remember for how long I've written this for the first time, to penalize teams that usually finish in the last five places by excluding them from the top five places after three consecutive seasons or more as no other. -Well feed on the pacifier of the league.
But the plan Gold, not gold, Jerry, not gold.
It never fails to make me laugh when someone reproaches the NHL General Managers for not recommending changes regarding, for example, the lottery, the playoff structure, the penalty shootout rule, or the offside rule.
Once for all. The NHL's executive directors have long been neutralized as members of Sixth Avenue. The GMs go to the air of the commissioner in important and insignificant cases, both. When Gary Bettman or Hockey Ops want a change, the GMs approve it. When league leaders are opposed, so are the GMs.
This is what is happening, at least since the failure of the 2004-05 collective bargaining, during which the NHL at one point made a proposal for a final cap that would have made the directors general almost obsolete. For inspired by the MLS model and lawyer Bob Batterman, who is one of the few most influential people in the sport over the last 15 years, Bettman has submitted a proposal that players would sign contracts with the NHL, which would serve as an exchange center and then, assign the athletes to teams as if it was a home league.
Of course, this followed the years leading up to the spending cap, when Bettman routinely reprimanded chief executives whose teams, according to the commissioner, spent too much money on the payroll.
Individually, the directors-general understand quite well what needs to be done. Collectively, without the approval of the league, they will not say cheese even with a mouthful.
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