Any rules preventing / punishing teams for throwing the season?

[Baka]

Tanking is not an issue.

Why Not? Money.

Players: Players make a living by playing hockey which requires them to negociate and sign contracts. A player tanking only harms his leverage when it comes to getting a better contract and in some cases would even make other organizations not even consider offering a contract to that player. In fact players (specifically upcoming FA) will play even harder to prove that they are not the problem and deserve a new or bigger contract.

Coaches: Similar to players they are coaching for a contract but unlike many players coaches will often get fired before those contracts end. For a coach to tank they have to make bad calls on the ice which fans will pick up on and the coach be first in line to take the heat for the teams failures. If he is then fired this will only hurt his chances with other teams as "I was just tanking" isn't an excuse a coach can make to cover up bad coaching. You mentioned Edmonton, what good did all those losing seasons do for Pat Quinn? Tom Renney? How would it help Krueger's coaching career?

General Manager: Outside of producing a good team they are also involved with managing the money of the owner to a degree. Tanking not only hurts sales to end the season but if they don't even get that top pick (which most years still will not pull an immediate crowd) it puts them in a bad position. Not to mention the only true power they have is moving roster pieces around they cannot push a player to tank or a coach without at least guarenteeing job security or money to those people. Plus beyond that it harms the quality of contracts seen by the team. Poor teams do not often attract the cream of the FA crop and will often have to overpay even more so to sign these players. The risks simply aren't good business.

On the realistic note when a team realizes they are out of the playoffs it is not uncommon for the team to experiment a bit trying new line combos or giving special team play to different players and in general doing an evaluation. Sometimes this will make a team drop a few (or occasionally become more dangerous)

[hsedin33]

I doubt an entire team would come together and agree to throw a game in the name of the franchise getting a slightly better player that can play with them 3-4 years down the road, especially when most of those players will be gone by then. If a player was seen 'tanking' that might come back to haunt him come contract time. Better off just to play hard and earn your paycheck.

[King Heffy]

This is where the Canucks have a leg up. If we ever need to throw a game a few years down the road, all we have to do is request O'Halloran and Sutherland as the officials.

[Burnsey]

Doubt anyone throws games. I mean (if I'm not mistaken) Dallas were sellers at the deadline losing Morrow and Jagr 2 players who could easily be key for them right now. Since the deadline they have only lost 2 games, if they were sellers they wouldn't be winning would they?

I mean no matter where you are in the standings how can players tank games? Personally if the Canucks were close to last, I would prefer they go out with good efforts and show the fans that we have something to look forward to in the future