Stopping the NHL's Tank Trains, Game-Show Style

NHL players want to win, but non-playoff teams want the best chance to win the draft lottery. Carol Schram takes an idea from game shows to propose a solution.

Wednesday's 3-2 overtime win for the Vancouver Canucks over the Anaheim Ducks was a textbook example of why NHL organizations strive to play meaningful games in March, even if they take away from their club's chances at the highest possible draft pick.

The Canucks got two points, which they don't really want. And in addition to watching their club's draft-lottery position get a little worse, the rather sparse crowd of paying customers at Rogers Arena was understandably lifeless during a low-event game which didn't offer much to cheer about.

Playing the second half of a back-to-back set following a 5-2 defeat in Seattle on Tuesday, the Ducks played a solid road game, limiting chances for their opponent and capitalizing on mistakes. And the Canucks limited their opponent to three goals or less for a fourth-straight game with their new coach Rick Tocchet preaching more committed systems play and better defensive efforts.

Playing in his 700th career game, J.T. Miller picked up his 22nd and 23rd goals of the year on Wednesday, a shorthanded marker in the first period and the winner in overtime.

But rather than dwell on his offensive accomplishments, Miller said after the game, "It's exciting for us, not giving up four a game. That means you've got to score five most nights, and it's really hard. There's so many good teams that play well defensively, and we want to be one of those teams."

The Canucks have now won three straight games at home for the first time this season and are 7-5-2 since Tocchet took over on Jan. 22. Tocchet is working his team through its "training camp" and trying to remake the Canucks' identity with an eye toward next season. In the meantime, the club is moving farther and farther away from last place in the overall standings and the best possible crack at drafting homegrown prodigy Connor Bedard.

Within the current system, the Canucks and their fans are essentially being penalized because the team is doing its best to put a good product on the ice, even though the playoffs are out of reach. And they're not alone. Nearly all the teams in the lower part of the standings are hovering around .500 since the all-star break — better results than they were able to muster earlier in the season.

So how about this? What if the NHL adopted a pass-or-play rule similar to what we see in many game shows? What if a winning club can decide whether to keep its two points on any given night or transfer them to their opponent?

It's a common gambit in the game-show world. On Press Your Luck, contestants in control of the board have the option to pass their spins to their opponent when they think a "whammy" might be coming, which causes the player to lose all the money they've accumulated. 

On Family Feud, teams can elect to pass control of a game to the opponent if they think it'll be difficult to guess enough correct fill-in-the-blank answers before accumulating three strikes.

If a bottom-dwelling NHL team could pass off its two points after a win, would that incentivize teams to play harder when they'd otherwise just be playing out the string – to control their own destiny without the burden of gaining additional points?

To give you an idea of just how little there was to watch in Vancouver on Wednesday: the game featured a total of 20 high-danger scoring chances in all situations, according to Natural Stat Trick. That's an extremely low total. By contrast, Wednesday's 4-2 win for Minnesota over Winnipeg, a game with playoff implications, featured 36 high-danger chances despite the fact that the Wild are a notoriously low-event club. 

The Chicago Blackhawks, after their trade deadline sell-off, managed just five high-danger chances in their entire game against the Detroit Red Wings on Wednesday. And they turned a 3-2 lead turn into a 4-3 regulation loss in the second half of the third period — great for their tank. After Wednesday's games, Chicago sits two points away from last place in the league, ahead of only the Columbus Blue Jackets. 

The Red Wings snapped an 0-5-1 losing streak with 18 high-danger chances in the game and are now six points out of a wild-card spot. Though they weren't far out, Steve Yzerman sold off pretty aggressively at the deadline, dealing away key players like winger Tyler Bertuzzi and defenseman Filip Hronek. 

We often hear about how players and coaches don't buy into the tank mentality. But would the Blackhawks have played harder in the third period if they'd thought they were at risk of having Detroit's two points passed to them and added to their total if they lost?

In Vancouver on Wednesday, Anaheim mustered seven high-danger chances and none after the second period. The actual shots on goal were 34-22 for the Canucks. There were only a handful of hits and just two penalties, both against Vancouver. And despite going to overtime, the game's duration was a decidedly brisk 2 hours and 21 minutes. That's practically running time!

Even after the trade-deadline sell-offs, most of the teams at the bottom of the standings have better records since the all-star break than they had in the earlier part of the season.

The most extreme example is the Arizona Coyotes. Through their first 50 games this season, they were 16-28-6 for 38 points (.380 points percentage). In their 14 games since the all-star break, they've gone 6-4-4 for 16 points. That's a .571 points percentage — despite sitting out and trading Jakob Chychrun while also dealing away Nick Bjugstad and Troy Stecher.

The Columbus Blue Jackets and Montreal Canadiens are both .500 since the all-star break, while the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks are each just one game below .500.

Two teams have accelerated their race to the bottom over the last few weeks and improved their draft lottery odds under the current system.

The San Jose Sharks have moved from 28th place down to 30th thanks to a record of 4-9-1 since the all-star break. And the Philadelphia Flyers, who were .500 at the all-star break, have played their way into the mix with a 3-8-2 record that has dropped them from 23rd to 25th.

As things stand, the draft system is designed to help the worst teams improve by getting the best chance to draft the best players. The current lottery system really does nothing to change this: the lowest-ranked teams still get the best draft-lottery odds. 

Yes, the last-place teams still get only about a 1-in-4 chance of snapping up the first-overall pick (25.5 percent). But that's still the best chance for any team, and last place also guarantees that a club won't slip further than the third pick under the current rules. 

But once a team cashes out on its playoff hopes, imagine if it could parlay a strong record down the stretch into a high draft pick instead of a seat in the mushy middle. Stakes like those could inject a lot more pop into some of the mean-nothing games that dot the NHL schedule near the end.