Higher draft pick, or fight for play-off chance? (ticket, playoff, wildcard)
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So, your team is not currently in the top ~10 of your conference... and there are ~4 teams ahead of yas, with many games yet left, but calendar is not your friend, and these other teams are also gunning for that elusive 8th or higher spot... So, is it better for your team to (a) just play well enough, have some fun, learn some, but be as close to bottom as possible, acquire higher draft, or (b) keep as much fight and pride and honor, scrapping and getting to go as high up the standings as possible? Option (b), while more short-term fan-friendly, I am afraid tho' just gets the team into worse case scenario - 9th or 10th spot, close enough to touch the 8th, but still cursed w/ being out of the PO's, and then of course further away from a higher draft pick... Pragmatic realistic looking more longer term vs. emotional fanatic that refuses to give up
Most drafts will have decent players in the top ten, so I dont think tanking games is a good idea. Maybe if you reduced ticket prices for the last 10 games and brought up some guys from the minors the fans may be okay with it.
Then again if there is a once in a decade player Gretzky, Lemieux, Lindross, Ovechkin, Sid then maybe you think about it.
keep fighting, you never know whose gonna get hot and whose gonna collapse. As a Carolina fan I hate to bring this up because we should have prevented it but look at Washington last season, I dont know how far back they were at this time last season, but they got hot winning 11 or 12 of their last games when they looked dead and ready for next season and (unfortunatly for me) knocked my team out. Meanwhile during that time we had a lock on the SE Division but just lost it. Also look at the western standings right now, it's pretty tight amongst all teams except for SJ, Detroit, Calgary, and Chicago, who are sitting pretty for now.
There's no guarantee a higher draft pick is gonna make your team better. If my team was down and close to out of the playoff picture, I'd rather see us keep fighting and possibly knocking some other team out rather than calling in the tanks.
Although I'm noticing on other teams message boards that some teams would like to tank and try and grab John Tavares.
Last edited by Canes2006Champs; 02-15-2009 at 10:04 PM..
Go down fighting to the bitter end. There have been NFL wildcard teams in the Superbowl.
True that, but, way the NHL works, different set of cards here - what with point system, and getting to the top 8 spots when your team is floating in the 13-15th spots at this time of year, well, that is what is difficult: hopping over these other 5-7 teams, as they too are fighting for that same elusive 8th or higher spot.
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