All writers are theives. I say that because this is a stolen idea.

ESPN.com's popular Page 2 columnist, Bill Simmons, recently wrote an article about the deterioration of the NBA and again raised the well-worn point about how expansion has contributed to basketball's decline, going so far as to conduct his own contraction draft and imagine the league's rosters without the dilution of talent. Brilliant, I thought. Too bad his talent is wasted on Kobe, T-Mac, and Jimmy Kimmell. (J/K, in case he inexplicably decides to read this.)

Anyway, the idea of contraction has been quietly floating around the NHL for the past few seasons, gaining some strength recently with the CBA set to expire and several hockey teams filing for bankruptcy faster than an Iraqi restaurant in Tuscaloosa. And then there's the declining quality of the product iself. Yawn-inducing chess matches decided solely on special teams play; games dictated by terribly inconsistent officiating; goalies dressed like the Michelin men; star players forced to work their magic with 200-pound minor leaguers strapped to their backs; Original Six arenas turned into European nightclubs; and jaded fans caught in the middle of an argument between crooked owners and greedy player-agents. All this and Armageddon set to occur in 2004. Why are we watching hockey again?

The theory shared by many is that some of these problems would be solved if several of the underachieving teams were cut from the league and their players distributed throughout the NHL like cards from a deck. But is this a realistically valid point, considering the amount of money that would be lost and the amount of heartbroken fans it would leave? Would contraction, an extreme situtation, solve any of all of the NHL's current problems?

Could Gabby Save Hockey in Buffalo?

To illustrate the validity of this idea, I decided to contract six teams from the league and then hold a draft of their players. Simple idea, right? The biggest problem here was deciding who to contract. Should it be done by finanicial success (adios Pittsburgh, Buffalo), statistical success (goodbye Rangers), or an arbitrary combination of the market, history, and potential of each franchise? I couldn't decide. So I just contracted the last four teams in the league (Minnesota, Columbus, Atlanta, Nashville) and two recent expansion teams that don't seem to be working in their given market (Ottawa, Anaheim). Fans of these organizations shouldn't read too much into this. This has nothing to do with who deserves to be contracted or anything. As said, it's an arbitrary list just created to show the effect of contraction. Please no hate-mail, Blue Jackets fans.

(For the record, I'm anti-contraction of any team in the NHL. Clearly expansion has diluted the product, but not so much as in other sports. What fans need to understand is that the influx of European players, particularly the Russians and Czechs who were denied the opportunity to play in the NHL prior to 1988, has overall raised the talent level of the league and created a need for expansion. To me contraction solves none of the problems in the game itself, and on the negative end denies hundreds of players the opportunity to play in the league and erases thousands of jobs. Yeah, some markets are miserable and some cities can't/won't support hockey, but I don't belive the dissolution of the team itself helps open up the neutral zone or gets Bill McCreary to figure out the difference between a elbowing penalty and a legal hit. But that's just me.)

Here's the draft, based on today's standings, with players distributed semi-arbitrarily based on my own personal assessments.

1. Buffalo -- Marian Gaborik
2. Carolina -- JS Giguere
3. Calgary -- Wade Redden
4. San Jose -- Dany Heatley
5. Phoenix -- Marian Hossa
6. Florida -- Zdeno Chara
7. Pittsburgh -- Paul Kariya
8. New York Rangers -- Daniel Alfredsson
9. Chicago -- Ilya Kovalchuk
10. Montreal -- Sandis Ozolinsh
11. Los Angeles -- Radek Bonk
12. Boston -- Andrew Cassels
13. Edmonton -- Petr Sykora
14. Tampa Bay -- Ray Whitney
15. New York Islanders -- Kimmo Timonen
16. Washington -- Steve Rucchin
17. St. Louis -- Patrick Lalime
18. Colorado -- Martin Havlat
19. Philadelphia -- Andy Sutton
20. Toronto -- Scott Hartnell
21. Detroit -- Ruslan Salei
22. New Jersey -- Geoff Sanderson
23. Vancouver -- Jaroslav Spacek
24. Dallas -- Filip Kuba

*Notables from Round 2 would probably be: Rick Nash, Patrik Stefan, Stanislav Chistov, David Legwand, Andy Delmore, Brad Bombardir, Tomas Vokoun, Karel Rachunek, Jason Spezza, and Rusty Klesla.

**One of the teams expanded here also happens to the best in the league, the Ottawa Senators, which certainly skews the talent level some. BUT if another team was chosen from the same expansion period, say the Tampa Bay Lightning, the quality of players available for the draft would not be dramatically different. Instead of Wade Redden, it would be Dan Boyle; instead of Alfredsson and Hossa, it's Brad Richards and Vincent Lecavalier; instead of Lalime, it's Nik Khabibulin. Every team has talent, only the Wings, Stars, and Rangers are top-heavy with it.

Contraction Analysis

Again, it's impossible to tell what effect this draft would have on the game itself, especially with the questionable way the game is being officiated lately. I'm just going to take a random sampling of four teams (Buffalo, Rangers, St. Louis, and Dallas) to determine the effect that such a draft might have on the these teams today.

Buffalo -- No brainer, here. Adding Marian Gaborik, one of the league's true stars and a scoring threat every time he steps on the ice, would dramatically improve any team; for the Sabres he'd rejuvinate the franchise. Gaborik with a cast of nobodys has led the Wild to playoff contention. Put Gabby on a team with Miro Satan, Chris Gratton, Tim Connelly, Alex Zhitnik, and two good goalies, they'd be a tough team to handle on any night. Not only that but Gabby is as marketable as they come. Gaborik jerseys would fly of the rack in stores from Niagara to Cheektowaga. And in the second round they can bag another future star like Spezza or Nash.
Contraction clearly works here.

Would the Blues Make The Leap With Lalime

New York Rangers -- Pretend for a moment that we live in fantasy world where adding good players actually makes the Rangers better, as opposed to just giving us another guy to blame for the agony of Christ. And forget that the Rangers actually act as agents of contraction every offseason anyway. Does adding Daniel Alfredsson, or basically another B-level star wing, make the Rangers better? Well...uh, yeah. Duh. Daniel Alfredsson instead of Matt Barnaby, Ronald Petrovicky, or Dan Lacouture? Another no brainer. This is a fantasy roster that also gets another blue-chip prospect in Round Two. Heck, we might even get into the playoffs with this roster. Maybe we should make another trade...
Contraction clearly works here.

St. Louis Blues -- Regular season powerhouses that regularly fall apart in the playoffs, usually thanks to porous goaltending. Add the impressive Lalime to the mix--ignoring, of course, that Lalime couldn't be given away five years ago and is the perfect example of why you shouldn't give up on a young player EVER--and the Blues look ready to finally contend with the Avalanche and Red Wings in the postseason. All that and they could probably still add Tomas Vokoun, Marc Denis, or Manny Fernandez in Round Two.
Contraction clearly works here.

Dallas Stars -- Things get murky here, as it becomes tougher to figure how to improve a team that already is seemingly unbeatable. And clearly the level of talent drops off dramatically after the first half of the draft, so Dallas is looking more for a solid depth player here, or maybe a potential young star. But this late a young stud defenseman like Filip Kuba is still available, as are plenty of grinding forwards that could fill a third or fourth line nicely, like Slava Kozlov, Sergei Zholtok or Scott Walker. Are these guys any worse than Mike Krushelnyski or Esa Tikkanen? Not even close.
Contraction clearly works here.

Resounding evidence that contraction, albeit in a very extreme form, would be good for the overall competitiveness of the league. Duh again, right? Well, personally I didn't think it would have such an impact, thinking that aside from distributing maybe a half-dozen stars to a half-dozen bad teams, the draft would only add depth players and minor upgrades at nonessential positions. But when you see things like Paul Kariya matched with Mario Lemieux, Ray Whitney on Edmonton's power play, or Andrew Cassels as a third line center in Boston--not to mention all the depth players like Todd White and Denis Arkhipov that would be redistributed--the prospect of a league filled with that much competition and talent would almost be enough to make even a casual fan tune in to hockey on a Saturday afternoon.

The question is: what kind of a crisis would the NHL have to be facing to make a desperate situation like this even an option? For one, about a handful of franchises would have to be on the verge of financial collapse. The disparity between haves and have-nots would have to be so extreme that large-market teams could seemingly subsidize small-market teams and extort their best players from them in cash-based deals or an exchange of three or four players that wouldn't have even been in the NHL about ten years ago. Salaries would have to be so out of whack that franchise players could be making almost ten times the amount of every other player on their respective team. And the game itself would have to be so slowed and unwatchable that the league would have to spend the offseason coming up with silly new rules to "improve" things and new marketing gimicks to attract younger and dumber future consumers. And lastly it would have to be heading towards a major public relations nightmare, like a prolonged work-stoppage in which very rich people decide how best to unfairly divide a bottomless money trough earned straight from the pockets of hard-working regular folk that share a love of the sport and the athletics it displays. Thank God we're not at that level.

Are you listening, NHL? You should be.

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