Shane Doan Has A Plan To Eliminate Tanking And It's Just As Stupid As You Would Imagine

YardBarker-  Shane Doan of the Arizona Coyotes has an interesting way to either solve this problem or take away any incentive to tank or any perception that there is tanking.

“The day you’re mathematically eliminated, you start accumulating points,” Doan said. “When you get to the end of the year, whoever’s accumulated the most points gets the first overall pick.”


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​Genius! Someone save Shane Doan a penthouse corner office at NHL Headquarters for after he retires, because he's basically figured out how to fix the entire sport of hockey on an off day. A playoff for higher draft picks between non-playoff teams that only begins after they statistically become non-playoff teams. That will really get teams to stop tanking...for the last 6 games of the season. 

Shane Doan does realize that if you only start accumulating points after you've been eliminated from postseason contention then it creates an incentive for bad teams to eliminate themselves from playoff contention earlier so they have more games than other bad teams to start earning points before the season ends, right? That doesn't eliminate tanking at all, it just makes it way more fucking confusing. Seriously, I started getting the makings of a headache just typing out the beginning of this paragraph.  Sure, this "plan" gets teams to compete during the last ten games of the season, but it does nothing to quell the issue of teams not trying to win the first 72 games of the season. I hardly consider an organization giving it's young guys a shot at the end of a disappointing year "tanking". Teams that truly tank go into the season actively looking to lose. That's what the NHL wants to rid itself of. Shane Doan's proposal just stops them from actively trying to lose games that were supposed to be largely meaningless. The goal is to deter franchises from tanking, not just redefine what the term means. So I like the proactive approach Shane, but maybe you should start in the mailroom before you go trying to play Commissioner. Even though sometimes it does seem rather easy.