Does/Did Tanking Work?

[Boudrias]

28 minutes ago, oldnews said:

What works is knowing all the personel out their - from top to bottom - and understanding that team building runs from top to bottom.  

You can tank all you want, but if you still have the old school Coilers club running your franchise, or a dimwit like Murray in Buffalo, you're still have a long and painful sh1tstorm in front of you that is not guaranteed to lead to anything but a long continuum of incompetence regardless of a premier asset or two.

People always look to saviours when life turns down turd road.  One high draft pick gives a franchise......one high draft pick.

So no - tanking is not and should not be an end in itself - and arguably it's the stupidest approach a team can take.

Rebuilding vs retooling on the other hand is a different debate entirely - and should have literally nothing to do with obsessing over draft position or deluding oneself that a single draft pick will bring a franchise the promise of contending.  

This much has been beaten to death on these boards, and yet there remains endless streams of tank dreamers that need themselves a saviour.

No team has ever won a thing on tanking alone.  There is simply so much more to turning around a franchise.

Good, well managed franchises leapfrog the tanking jokes in short order - because all the other assets a team has - aside for their 1st overall saviour - are also vitally important.

So it's a simple no, tanking does not work - it's simply the case that a premier young player might become a vital piece of a well-built franchise - however, it's also exceedingly obvious that it's also not necessary to have a tank piece in order to win.

 

 

29 minutes ago, oldnews said:

What works is knowing all the personel out their - from top to bottom - and understanding that team building runs from top to bottom.  

You can tank all you want, but if you still have the old school Coilers club running your franchise, or a dimwit like Murray in Buffalo, you're still have a long and painful sh1tstorm in front of you that is not guaranteed to lead to anything but a long continuum of incompetence regardless of a premier asset or two.

People always look to saviours when life turns down turd road.  One high draft pick gives a franchise......one high draft pick.

So no - tanking is not and should not be an end in itself - and arguably it's the stupidest approach a team can take.

Rebuilding vs retooling on the other hand is a different debate entirely - and should have literally nothing to do with obsessing over draft position or deluding oneself that a single draft pick will bring a franchise the promise of contending.  

This much has been beaten to death on these boards, and yet there remains endless streams of tank dreamers that need themselves a saviour.

No team has ever won a thing on tanking alone.  There is simply so much more to turning around a franchise.

Good, well managed franchises leapfrog the tanking jokes in short order - because all the other assets a team has - aside for their 1st overall saviour - are also vitally important.

So it's a simple no, tanking does not work - it's simply the case that a premier young player might become a vital piece of a well-built franchise - however, it's also exceedingly obvious that it's also not necessary to have a tank piece in order to win.

 

Fans talk as if tanking becomes a conscious choice. In most of the examples given the management road their old horses until they dropped and then their options were limited. The Edmonton example is obvious but Chicago and Florida were similar.

It appears to me that Murray did a excellent job converting is vets into picks and prospects. Buffalo's depth is far superior to Vancouver.

I stand by my thought that Vancouver should be trying to convert at least 3 vets into pics and prospects this year. If Benning is able to achieve that it will be a good season. One only has to look at the development timeline on the existing roster to realize it is a ticking time bomb about 2seasons from exploding. I certainly do not count Benning and Linden responsible for this situation but failure to act will be on their heads. 

[The Lock]

52 minutes ago, Patrick Kane said:

You need to be able to draft outside the 1st round.

This. There's far more to creating a winning team than tanking and hoping you get a top pick. Just to prove a point, here's some of what each of these teams who "tanked" drafted in round 2 or later....

Chicago: Keith, Burish, Wisniewski, Babchuk, Byfuglien, Bolland, Bickel, Brouwer, Hjalmarsson, etc

LA: Simmonds, Martinez, King, Voynov, Clifford, Toffolli, Andreoff, Nolan, etc

Pittsburgh: Letang, Talbot, Moulson, Goliogski, Kennedy, Muzzin, etc

So, in conclusion, just "tanking" will get us nowhere. In fact, I'm still in full belief that we don't even need to tank to get somewhere. Teams become winning teams by being able to draft well. Teams do NOT become winning teams through tanking.

[EdgarM]

11 minutes ago, TOMapleLaughs said:

Agreed.  But a big, fast, uber-skilled player like Lemieux is generational and you see a greater urgency to pull off a tank in that case.

However, Lemieux won no cups in Pittsburgh until they had went to a 100% commitment to winning cups, top-down.  Scotty Bowman brought in, various playoff-proven vets, 'grit', a lot of expense, etc.

Exactly what I am saying. Today that means teams spending right to the cap space. Vancouver yes, Nashville and Winnipeg, not so much.

Again, teams in Mario's era had no cap space it was more if the owner could or would spend the money. The 94' NY Rangers were a perfect example of a team which spent alot of money to bring the cup to their city.

[Tortorella's Rant]

3 minutes ago, The Lock said:

This. There's far more to creating a winning team than tanking and hoping you get a top pick. Just to prove a point, here's some of what each of these teams who "tanked" drafted in round 2 or later....

Chicago: Keith, Burish, Wisniewski, Babchuk, Byfuglien, Bolland, Bickel, Brouwer, Hjalmarsson, etc

LA: Simmonds, Martinez, King, Voynov, Clifford, Toffolli, Andreoff, Nolan, etc

Pittsburgh: Letang, Talbot, Moulson, Goliogski, Kennedy, Muzzin, etc

So, in conclusion, just "tanking" will get us nowhere. In fact, I'm still in full belief that we don't even need to tank to get somewhere. Teams become winning teams by being able to draft well. Teams do NOT become winning teams through tanking.

Tanking is part of it though. The most important pieces you left out there were because those teams tanked hard.

[TOMapleLaughs]

Just now, EdgarM said:

Exactly what I am saying. Today that means teams spending right to the cap space. Vancouver yes, Nashville and Winnipeg, not so much.

Again, teams in Mario's era had no cap space it was more if the owner could or would spend the money. The 94' NY Rangers were a perfect example of a team which spent alot of money to bring the cup to their city.

I don't spending to the cap has much to do with it.  At times that is a means to continue mediocrity.  I'm more referring to the top-down franchise commitment to winning that we've seen winning teams do when they've won, (lol).  This means going beyond the cap of course, and diving head first into every non-salary-related expenditure available.  This imho is what separates the Detroit's and Chicago's from the bulk of the league.

[TOMapleLaughs]

Conversely, there's no point in spending millions in these extra expenditures when the horses aren't in the stable.

[Tre Mac]

Pittsburgh tanked for Mario, that worked.

Buffalo tanked for McDavid, that didn't work.

 

Those are the only concrete examples I know of.  Tanking can work but there are no guarantees.

[The Lock]

9 minutes ago, Tortorella's Rant said:

Tanking is part of it though. The most important pieces you left out there were because those teams tanked hard.

That's not for all cases though. That's especially not happening now since the top 3 picks are random.

If you look at LA, aside from their 2nd overall Doughty, Kopitar's their star center, yet he was picked 11th overall. Chicago drafted well throughout their years of not having a good team. If they had just their first rounders, I doubt we'd be looking at them the same way. It's one of those things where we can't rely on tanking. We shouldn't even be expecting to tank as far as I'm concerned. If we have that bad of a year then fine, but let's at least have it through having a bad year like LA did and not through purposely trying to tank.

[EdgarM]

4 minutes ago, TOMapleLaughs said:

I don't spending to the cap has much to do with it.  At times that is a means to continue mediocrity.  I'm more referring to the top-down franchise commitment to winning that we've seen winning teams do when they've won, (lol).  This means going beyond the cap of course, and diving head first into every non-salary-related expenditure available.  This imho is what separates the Detroit's and Chicago's from the bulk of the league.

"non-salary-related expenditure available"? Your team consists of roughly a 23 man roster. Your cap space tells you how much EVERY team can spend and no more. How and where you spend that money is where there are differences. Where I see "mediocrity" coming from on this team is paying so-so players too much(Dorsett,Prust,Hansen,Higgins,Burrows,Sbisa and Hamhuis for e.g.) and not having enough cap space to spend on higher end players (#1 Dman for e.g.)

Chicago is a good example wher they pay their core players the big bucks and let everybody else walk if they do not want to play for less. This is obviously working for them.

That is why I balked at signing some one like Weber last year as we could have got his caliber or better from one of our rookies. Recent signings of Dorsett,Prust and Sbisa the same thing.

[ForsbergTheGreat]

I’ll answer that very simply.

 

What is a definition of tanking.

Purposely putting together a roster to obtain the highest draft pick possible.  Which intern allows you to draft the best player available in that said draft year. 

If that hawks intention was to tank in 2006, Than why did they only end up with the 3^rd overall.  Does that mean STL who finished 8 points below the Hawks (and were awarded the first overall selection) tanked hard?

If tanking works, than how come STL who drafted Erik Johnson first overall doesn’t have a cup while the Hawks who drafted Toews 3^rd overall does?  Should the team who tanked harder have a cup?  Were the Hawks fans in 2006 who supported tanking, upset with mgmt that the Hawks didn’t do everything they could to select first overall?

[EdgarM]

13 minutes ago, The Lock said:

That's not for all cases though. That's especially not happening now since the top 3 picks are random.

If you look at LA, aside from their 2nd overall Doughty, Kopitar's their star center, yet he was picked 11th overall. Chicago drafted well throughout their years of not having a good team. If they had just their first rounders, I doubt we'd be looking at them the same way. It's one of those things where we can't rely on tanking. We shouldn't even be expecting to tank as far as I'm concerned. If we have that bad of a year then fine, but let's at least have it through having a bad year like LA did and not through purposely trying to tank.

You brought up a good point. Its not where you pick sometimes but who you pick. Your scouting staff play an integral part of drafting the correct players. I think Vancouver has been guilty of drafting the wrong players a couple of times at least over the years.

[TOMapleLaughs]

1 minute ago, EdgarM said:

"non-salary-related expenditure available"? Your team consists of roughly a 23 man roster. Your cap space tells you how much EVERY team can spend and no more. How and where you spend that money is where there are differences. Where I see "mediocrity" coming from on this team is paying so-so players too much(Dorsett,Prust,Hansen,Higgins,Burrows,Sbisa and Hamhuis for e.g.) and not having enough cap space to spend on higher end players (#1 Dman for e.g.)

Chicago is a good example wher they pay their core players the big bucks and let everybody else walk if they do not want to play for less. This is obviously working for them.

That is why I balked at signing some one like Weber last year as we could have got his caliber or better from one of our rookies. Recent signings of Dorsett,Prust and Sbisa the same thing.

You're not getting it.  I am referring to the non-salary-related expenditures that all teams have.  This is applied to things like player development, drafting and scouting services, training, statistical analysis for all amateur and pro leagues, consultants, legal fees, player incentives, and every other miscellaneous cost that winning teams take on to secure the win.  These teams don't magically acquire these things at an elite level just like tanking teams don't magically start to win by merely tanking, it all costs money, and money spent wisely.

[homersexual]

Simple answer is yes, tanking works. It has been proven. Does it always work, of course not. Will getting a high draft pick work for the Canucks. who knows. It certainly can't hurt can it.

[EdgarM]

2 minutes ago, TOMapleLaughs said:

You're not getting it.  I am referring to the non-salary-related expenditures that all teams have.  This is applied to things like player development, drafting and scouting services, training, statistical analysis for all amateur and pro leagues, consultants, legal fees, player incentives, and every other miscellaneous cost that winning teams take on to secure the win.  These teams don't magically acquire these things at an elite level just like tanking teams don't magically start to win by merely tanking, it all costs money, and money spent wisely.

OK yes I agree, especially in the scouting department where we have had most of the same scouting staff for years now. But yes money is the bottom line.

[ForsbergTheGreat]

15 minutes ago, EdgarM said:

You brought up a good point. Its not where you pick sometimes but who you pick. Your scouting staff play an integral part of drafting the correct players. I think Vancouver has been guilty of drafting the wrong players a couple of times at least over the years.

It's also plain luck as well.  Compare the 3rd overall in 2006 (Toews) to the 3rd overall 2004 (barker) or 2005 (J.Johnson) or 2007 (Turris) or 2008 (Bogosian).  The year you pick also plays a huge part.

One year the hawks end up with the 3rd overall and pick a bust (Barker) another year they end up with the third overall and they end up with the greatest captain in the game since Yzerman. That is just pure luck

 

 

[JamesB]

2 hours ago, TOMapleLaughs said:

Case for:  Chicago, LA, Pittsburgh

Case against:  Edmonton, Edmonton, Edmonton, Edmonton, Edmonton

Conclusion:  You cannot merely lose and expect to magically get better.  There eventually needs to be a total commitment to winning.  Chicago, LA and Pittsburgh did that.  Edmonton has yet to do so and they may never will, which is fine, because the 80's.

You right. There is nothing magical or automatic about achieving success. However, successful drafting is a very important part of achieving success and tanking is one way of improving the chances of having a good draft.

I would distinguish between

i) tanking -- setting out to be as bad as possible from early on the season (like Buffalo last year)

and

ii) making trades at or near the deadline to acquire draft picks.

The Canucks have made an effort to win this  year. But at some point it  makes sense to say that "we aren't going anywhere this year, let's trade vets for draft picks and build for the future."

I have no problem with the Canucks doing their best to win over the next 20 games or so. However, assuming the team continues to struggle, at some point I think it makes sense to make trades for draft picks.

Let's hope Vrby and Hammer continue to play well (as both did last night) as they might be worth low first round picks at the deadline.

 

 

[flickyoursedin]

In 05/06 the Chicago Blackhawks made trades with 8 different teams trading away their third highest point scorer. They ended up picking Toews that year 3rd overall. Probably got sick and tired with mediocrity and less skilled mediocre picks. Also in that 2006 offseason Chicago traded away the 2 players that led their team in points the previous season and ended up picking Kane at 1rst overall that year. So not tanking but trading away their vets worked out pretty well here. 

[Lockhart]

59 minutes ago, Tre Mac said:

Pittsburgh tanked for Mario, that worked.

Buffalo tanked for McDavid, that didn't work.

 

Those are the only concrete examples I know of.  Tanking can work but there are no guarantees.

 

Buffalo wanted McDavid, but they initiated the tanking knowing they would pretty much be guaranteed McDavid or Eichel. So I wouldn't say they failed. It's not like they tanked and picked Cam Barker.

[flickyoursedin]

Its about getting value from the guys that won't be there for the big picture. Do you see Vrbata hoisting the cup with Vancouver? The first round pick you get for him could very well be a Corey Perry, John Carlson late round steal. With how the Canucks look lately I see that 1rst round pick as that helping factor for when we'll need it. The only scenarios I see are trade Vrbata for a high pick which might make us lose a few more games, or keep him and lose him for nothing while still miss the playoffs and picking another number 2 centre or number 2 dman.

[Nuxfanabroad]

1 hour ago, Chalky said:

I was referring to Mario and Sidney Crosby.  The Pens have won the "tank game"

I would suggest Chicago wasn't "tanking" in 2009/10, they just had a terrible owner in Bill Wirtz and they sucked so hard for so long they inadvertently ended up with a Toews and Kane.

The Oil have tried to tank, and they have a great roster, but years of inept asset management from a joke of a management team has seen it wasted.

Buffalo tanked for Eichel and Reinhart, we'll have to see how that works out.

The Leafs are tanking right now!  Again, we'll have to wait and see how it plays out.

For the record, I don't like the term tanking.  I have no issue with rebuilding, but no player or coach will intentionally lose, it's just not realistic.

Agree with this. Trading away present for future talent shouldn't be disparaged so roundly.