Stop The Rewarding of Losers!

1) We have had it with this aspect of hockey, and society in general. As this is a hockey blog we will keep the discussion pertaining to hockey only.

2) First stop giving teams points for a loss. A loss is just that, a defeat! End of sentence. You lose, you go home empty handed. "No soup for you!" Why they can't allow this is simple, awarding more points allows teams to stay in the race longer and more teams can claim, (erroneously) that they are playing .500 or better.

3) A look at the current standings shows that an amazing 23 teams are .500 or better! Now, even in an era of mediocrity, or in the parlance of political correctness, parity that's way too many. If one were to simply call a loss a loss, whether it be in regulation, OT or the silly shoot out, that number dwindles to 15. Which makes more sense. Half the teams should be above .500 and half below.

4) The next area to which the NHL rewards losing is in the annual entry draft where teams are rewarded for having miserable regular seasons by getting prime draft positions for the best young talent. The idea being that the worse teams need the help so should be given more assistance by a better draft order. Bullshit! They had to institute the lottery to try to reduce teams 'tanking it' to get a better draft pick. This way you're not certain to be 'worst' even if you are worst in the standings. This still does NOT stop this from occurring anyway

5) We say they should use the system that was employed after the Bettman lockout; Simply put each of the 30 teams into a lotto ball machine and choose the draft order accordingly. This will end once and for all any possibility of a team not giving full effort(see the Penguins of 1984), or even the possibility of folks believing they may be tanking the season(see the Caps this year).

6) To add insult to injury the NHL just adopted yet another 'reward for losing rule' to the draft. Starting this year draft order of the playoff teams will also, or instead be determined by how well they do in the post season and NOT the regular season. This is the Red Wing rule, as they are, despite their Cups, the team that has suffered more early playoff defeats than any other recently. So if for instance the RedWings finish with the most points, but lost in the first round(again) they would NOT draft last but somewhere in the early 20's. So losing in the playoffs will now be rewarded

7) We have no illusions that any of our ideas will ever be implemented. In fact it appears if anything the Bettman led NHL is going in the opposite direction and sadly further rewarding of losers is likely to continue into the foreseeable future