The NHL Tank Job : The Vancouver Canucks pay for Edmonton Oilers incompetence and the true definition of NHL tanking

"To the loser goes the spoils"

Thusly have top draft picks been awarded to pro sports teams in the modern era, little or no vitriol has been aimed at the system due to the fact that well,......it works.

Historically there have been a few embarrassing hiccups along the way, such as the New Jersey Devils and Pittsburg Penguins playing the last game of the season for Mario Lemuiex, but for ther most part in an imperfect world. The system worked and life went on......

Enter the Edmonton Oilers, in a streak of failure unprecedented in major pro-sports the bumbling boobs given rein ton operate this once proud sports franchise had them winning first round 1st overalls almost every year for the past several. They were unable to get their short bus out from being stuck in the mud.no matter how many future superstars they acquired to help them push. It began to feel as if Edmonton were a black hole at the top of the losers food chain into whom the greatest potential talent of a generation was disappearing without a trace,

This is where the complaints began.

And like any group one might wish to demonize , those parties responsible gumming up the noble works of the National Hockey League talent distribution system needed to have a derogatory slur to call their own.

So it was that the term "Tankers" came into being, here was a term with which inebriated callers to late night sports talk radio shows could spew scorn onto teams and cities better situated than the home squad  in the upcoming draft. it was still only a street level murmuring of discontent util the NHL's  resident Irishman and all-around blowhard Brain Burke decided to grab himself a few headlines:

 “I can’t imagine trying to not win a game,” said Burke, who seemed incredulous that someone would think teams try to lose on purpose. He said if he tried to pull that off with the Flames, he would end up in a fight with captain Mark Giordano. Not a disagreement: a fist fight. “He would punch me right in the head,” said Burke, sounding exasperated, which admittedly seemed to be his base tone at the Sloan conference. Burke didn’t even like that the draft lottery had been created to try to prevent tanking. “Shouldn’t the worst team get the best pick?,” he said, rhetorically.

Though the subject of intentionally losing came up a lot at the conference, Burke was the only speaker I heard dispute that, as a strategy, it exists. R.C. Buford, general manager of the San Antonio Spurs, said of tanking, “It’s a strategy that’s allowed in the rules… But I don’t like it.” Mike Zarren, an assistant GM with the Boston Celtics, said “the public perception that teams have an incentive to lose is a problem.” Zarren is pushing revised versions of the “draft wheel” concept — one that would introduce more randomness to the draft order, while guaranteeing equal chances at top picks over a time frame of several years — but he noted that he didn’t know “if there’s an appetite for this dramatic a change” among enough teams to make it happen

Following these statements from Burke it seemed every Joe-six-pack who was down to his last beer had something bad to say about "Tanking and "Tankers" One of the favorite refrains was "It doesn't work look at the Oilers" Never mind that this same strategy of "Tanking" Had been employed by nearly any team who has made a Stanley cup final over the last several years.

So it seems there is some confusion as to what is being discussed  and in light of that I think it's time to normalize our definition of the term "tanking"

TANK-(Sports~to tank {verb} your season tanked {Adj} Tanking (the process wherein one tanks})

When a team "tanks": It jettisons the foundational players upon whom the teams hopes to compete and locker room culture are built. They invest whatever equity they are able to liquidate in the "futures" market, in hockey terms this refers to draft picks, prospects and young players with the potential to become the foundational players of tomorrow. As the team rids its self of the present core, while acquiring these opportunities for a new one, they are then left with a Skeleton crew roster made up of a few players who have the potential and youth to play a role in forming the next leadership group and journeymen who fill slots until the next wave of prospects are ready. In most cases a team in this stage of transitioning their roster will not compare well with established squads and lose often, This has the positive effect of ensuring a high draft pick to the team in question, but can also become habitual losing if they don't pull out within a year or two The aforementioned phase is considered to be the "Tanking " phase as the team's #1 priority is to draft as high as possible that year

So there you have it, to tank is not to drug your team prior their setting skate to ice, and to use all manner of foul trixks to mske sure they lose, if a team is able to win once stripped of thier previous coe, then the rebuild is done and the tank no longer nessasary,

Ever team at the top of the standings have done this definition of a tank job at some point.

The recent chnges to the lottery system were in reaction to the Oilers and in a classic "  shut the barn door after the cows are gone move' the Oil are no longer a lottery team.It is teams such as the Canucks that will pay for the Oil's buffoonery and have any hope of a quick rebuild smashed by their legacy of mismanagement

Fans would do well to remember that a tank job is part of NHL life, at least it used to,  now NHL bottom feeders have little hope of picking their next foundation in a timely manner, more often than not we will see bad teams remain bad team. And while the Oilers Fly high, with Captain McDavid at the wheel, see if you can spot the bodies of Nail Yakapov, Jesse Puljujuarvi and the Vancouver Canucks falling to earth in their wake.