Lottery tanking is despicable; Panthers get it right

Losing does not sit well with the proud Maple Leafs and coach Paul Maurice, for whom a lottery pick is cold consolation. Ap

The phrase currently spreading like a communicable disease through the NHL is "Stamkos Sweepstakes" -- in small measure because of its fine alliterative quality.

(Alas, the "Doughty Sweepstakes," a nod to Drew Doughty, the Ontario Hockey League defenseman who might supplant Steven Stamkos, the gifted scorer, as the first player picked in the 2008 entry draft, has a diffident diapason. And as you probably realize, so many of the deep thinkers in and around the NHL are total alliterates.)

In actual fact, the Stamkos Sweepstakes refers to the race for the league's bottom and the best chance to land the first pick in the draft. In this crazy, upside down world of ours, many people out there think that having a superior position heading into the lottery is a splendid thing.

The entire city of Toronto is practically pleading with the beloved Maple Leafs to wave a white towel on 2007-08, especially in the light of injuries to captain Mats Sundin, Nik Antropov and now the season-ender to defenseman Carlo Colaiacovo. Meanwhile, an astute NHL observer of my acquaintance, a man young enough to stay up until the end of West Coast games, tells me that he heard a color commentator get apoplectic when Los Angeles Kings coach Marc Crawford had the temerity to pull his goaltender in an attempt to score a late, tying goal. According to our spy, the commentator sputtered that the woeful Kings should be trying to get a better draft position, not a point by forcing overtime.

In other words, the Kings should not have been trying to win. To use a word kicked around in the NBA this week by Minnesota Timberwolves owner Glen Taylor in connection with the estimable Kevin Garnett, they should be in the "tank."

This is the sports world fallen through a rabbit hole. To paraphrase Vince Lombardi for the cynical 21st century, winning isn't everything, it's the only thing you shouldn't do in certain circumstances. The idea of losing, even with the apparent long-term benefit of your team foremost in mind, is madness.

Even if you could somehow reprogram athletes to adjust to what some consider the Realpolitik of sports -- losing rarely sits well with players or coaches or even general managers, if you haven't guessed -- it violates the nature of the games themselves. To intentionally get a better drafting slot by not putting forth one's best effort spits at the integrity of leagues and sports. Yes, the shameless tortoise race between the Pittsburgh Penguins and New Jersey Devils wound up directing Mario Lemieux to Pittsburgh almost a quarter of a century ago, but the process was unseemly then. It didn't get any prettier when the Ottawa Senators tried it in the early 1990s, prompting the NHL to usher in a lottery in the hope of curbing these shenanigans.

If I am Gary Bettman, I shoot a memo to the 30 teams reminding them that the integrity of the NHL is more important than the conspicuous if raw gifts of a couple of 18-year-olds named Stamkos and Doughty. And I send a handwritten note to Crawford to thank him for pulling his goalie and to Toronto coach Paul Maurice for playing Vesa Toskala every game in goal, despite his sore groin, while the Maple Leafs still have a mathematical chance at the playoffs. Starting the feckless Andrew Raycroft would herald Toronto's capitulation.

Too bad the people who shell out what basically amounts to your monthly mortgage payment for a pair of platinums at the Air Canada Centre don't necessarily see it that way.

Maurice has been described as selfish because he is coaching to win every game, perhaps in a vain effort to save his job for 2008-09. There might be nothing noble in the intentions of a coach hanging on by a thread. But the way I see it, Maurice is coaching to save the NHL from its basest instincts.

Good for him.

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