WINNING TRUMPS SHOT AT TOP PICK
Hawks won’t look to bow out of playoffs early, even if it means shot at No. 1 pick
The placeholder’s ‘‘victory’’ in the NHL Draft Lottery on Friday — opening the door for one of the eight qualifying-round losers to land the No. 1 overall pick — has incited a lot of talk about tanking.
But there’s an important clarification to make. Fans — and reporters, admittedly — constantly think about tanking. General managers and other executives sometimes think about tanking. Coaches and players never think about tanking.
Especially not in the playoffs, no matter how bloated those playoffs might be.
That’s as hard and true of a guarantee as any in this sport. The Hawks’ veterans would scoff at the thought of intentionally losing in any scenario, no matter how beneficial the long-term gain would be. So would the Hawks’ young players, even those just a year or two removed from being first-round picks themselves. So would coach Jeremy Colliton.
Any reporter who asks an NHL player about his struggling team potentially getting a high draft pick might as well ask about an alien invasion: The player never will acknowledge the possibility in the slightest.
Even behind closed doors, the same is generally true.
Well-traveled NHL executive Brian Burke put it aptly in his appearance on an NBC Sports Chicago podcast this week: “If Jeremy Colliton went in and told Jonathan Toews, ‘By the way, we’re going to tank and see if we can get this [Alexis] Lafreniere kid,’ Jonathan Toews would punch him.’’
So it’s well-established that no one in the Hawks’ organization would support or encourage tossing the series to pursue Lafreniere.
More intriguing is whether the Hawks hypothetically would be better off tossing the series to pursue Lafreniere.
A vocal portion of the fan base thinks so. The replies to my tweet about the Hawks’ opportunity after the lottery included “Tank for Alexis!” “Go, Oilers!” and one that suggested scoring own goals against Corey Crawford.
That cynical contingent’s logic is roughly as follows:
The Hawks’ road to a Stanley Cup is long and improbable. It would take five series victories, starting with the best-of-five matchup against the Oilers, to capture the title. Even if the Hawks had a 50% chance of winning each series (they actually would be significant underdogs in all five), their Cup odds would be only 3.1%.
Far more plausible is the first overall selection, which the Hawks would have a 12.5% chance of obtaining if they lose to the Oilers. With it would come Lafreniere, clearly the best prospect in the class.
But the comparison is not nearly as simple as that implies.
For one thing, winning the Cup and landing Lafreniere are far from equivalent accomplishments, even when looking through the most long-distance lens. Even making the conference final might be more significant than landing Lafreniere.
After all, the last three No. 1 overall picks — Nico Hischier (Devils, 2017), Rasmus Dahlin (Sabres, 2018) and Jack Hughes (Devils, 2019)— have not been franchise altering so far. Both those teams were back among the lottery contestants this season for a reason.
A 12.5% chance isn’t that high, either. By comparison, the Senators and Red Wings put their respective 25% and 18.5% odds to the test last week, and it didn’t work out. And if the Hawks’ Ping-Pong ball wasn’t the lucky one, they’d be picking no higher than ninth.
The theoretical to-tank-or-notto-tank debate likely will rage on for weeks — if not months, depending on how long it takes the NHL to start the playoffs.
But it’s only that: theoretical. The Hawks never will act on that principle. If they lose to the Oilers and slip into the Lafreniere lottery, it’ll be because they lost, not because they tanked.