With the completion of the fifteenth and last article
(Protected Draft Territory – Alternate Draft History for the Year 2014) in the
series describing the results of implementing a Protected Draft Territory
(P.D.T.) for each NHL team and the alternate history for the NHL Entry Drafts that
would have resulted, it is now possible to summarize the results and look at
whether my suggested solution to rectify the problems with the NHL Entry Draft
is a viable one.
In Parts 1 and 2 of this series, we saw how the first 20
teams could have fared under the P.D.T. Some teams would have done very well
(Toronto), some teams would have done OK, and some teams would not have done so
well. In this article, we’ll turn our attention to the bottom 10 teams (starting
with Pittsburgh) and their results. Looking at Table 1 below things seem to go
from bad to worst.
Table 1.
Picking up with the 21st team in the above
table, Pittsburgh would have been able to designate a total of two players
under their P.D.T. Two players out of a possible fifteen in what most would
consider an area of the U.S. conducive to hockey. Here are those two players:
Table 2.
Even though the number (two) is quite low, the quality is pretty high – a
solid NHL’er with a long career and a goalie who just might be the next phenom
between the pipes.
Looking at the results for the 22nd team from Table 1. above, it
is apparent that the St. Louis Blues would still be waiting to determine how
they would be doing under the P.D.T.:
Table 3.
But, the trend seems to be favouring St. Louis as well since they would
have been able to designate two players in the past five years under their
P.D.T. umbrella.
Looking at the results for the 23rd team from Table 1. above,
it is apparent that Carolina’s results would be considered pretty bad:
Table 4.
Being able to designate one player under their P.D.T. in fifteen years?
The only positive thing that can be said from those results is that at least
the one player was designated within the past two years.
Looking at the results for the 24th team from Table 1. above,
it is apparent that the jury would still be out on Los Angeles’ P.D.T. picks:
Table 5.
On the positive side, at least the one player designated under the P.D.T.
was done so within the past two years.
Looking at the results for the 25th team from Table 1. above, it is readily
apparent that San Jose would have fared extremely poorly under the P.D.T.:
Table 6.
Even though their one player designated under their P.D.T. has, and
continues to have, a very solid NHL career, only one player out of fifteen
possible players shows that even with success in the regular season and
playoffs, grass roots hockey in the San Jose area seems to need a helping hand.
Looking at the results for the 26th thru 30th teams
from Table 1. above, it is apparent that the non-traditional hockey markets of
Sunrise Florida (Panthers), Nashville (Predators), and Tampa Bay (Lightning)
would all need a helping hand to try and encourage grass roots hockey to
develop in their local areas.
What is more surprising, two markets that should be conducive to hockey
(Philadelphia and Washington) would have had the same results under the P.D.T.
as the non-traditional markets:
Table 7.
Looking at the results presented in this article from the bottom 10 NHL teams,
it is not surprising to see markets that are not traditionally conducive to
hockey (Carolina, Los Angeles, San Jose, Florida, Nashville, and Tampa Bay)
would have fared extremely poorly under the P.D.T. But at least for a couple of
those non-traditional markets, the results are at least trending in the right
direction – up.
What was the most surprising aspect to this series of articles was that
markets that would traditionally be seen as conducive to hockey (Pittsburgh,
St. Louis, Philadelphia, and Washington) had extremely poor to abysmal results
under the P.D.T.
The obvious question – what could
be done to improve the results of the teams who would have fared poorly under
the P.D.T.? In this case, poorly would be defined to be any team not having
players designated under their P.D.T. for the majority (eight) of the fifteen
years. Which by definition would be 20 of the 30 NHL teams.
If this question had been asked back in 1999, the expectation would have
been that whatever measures were adopted to help the teams expected to have
poor results under the P.D.T., these measures could have been implemented,
modified, and then gradually phased out over the course of anywhere from five
to twenty years.
To help ease the introduction of the P.D.T., for the first five years, the
first rule implemented could have been to allow teams without a player
designated under their P.D.T. to designate a player from another team’s P.D.T..
After the P.D.T. had been phased in for five years, the first modification
of the rules covering the next ten years (years 6 to 15) could have seen teams
no longer able to designate a player from another team’s P.D.T. Instead, the
teams without a player under their P.D.T. would be given a secondary pick, in
the same order they finished in the NHL Entry Draft, at the end of the first
round of the draft.
After the P.D.T. had been in place for fifteen years, the second
modification of the rules covering the next ten year period (years 16 to 25),
could have seen teams without a player under their P.D.T. given a secondary
pick, in the same order they finished in the NHL Entry Draft, at the end of the
second round of the draft.
After the P.D.T. had been in place for twenty-five years, the third
modification of the rules could have been to simply remove any help for the
teams without a player designated under their P.D.T. as it could be argued that
twenty-five years is more than enough time for teams to help found (if need
be), nurture, and grow grass-roots hockey in the area around their location.
Remember, the ultimate goal of the P.D.T. is to encourage teams to grow
grass-roots support for hockey in their local areas. In this way the long-term
health of the game we all love could be solidified so that future generations
of fans would be able to enjoy the game as we current fans do.
Please check back on this site for future articles on how the revised NHL
Entry Drafts under a P.D.T. system would have distributed different players to
different teams.
