The NFL draft was last night and it was certainly a lot different than any pro sports draft that I can remember, for obvious reasons. That got me thinking about what the NHL is going to do with their draft coming up.

It's not quite the same situation for the NFL as it is for the NHL. One is currently, technically, still firmly in the regular season while the other's regular season doesn't start for over four months. We also don't know when the NHL will restart, or if the NFL will start. There's a lot of uncertainty right now.

There have been a lot of ideas put forth when discussing the NHL draft because of our wild, wild circumstances. Doing the draft in an arena without fans, doing it online, doing it all on Zoom or some comparable platform has all been suggested. We also don't know if it'll happen in June, July, or November.

With all that being said, right now would be the perfect time to adjust some things about the NHL draft; there is lots of time to think it over and everyone is basically in the same boat right now. I have five changes I'd like to make to the NHL draft.

Cage fights for lottery draft order

There are a lot of things about tanking that have rubbed me the wrong way. In practice, I get it. I get that some teams are just so starved for talent – and it's superstar talent that wins championships – that they're fine with just wasting a couple franchise seasons in order to garner draft picks in bulk, but also getting towards the top of the draft, and hopefully first overall. At the same time, you're asking players to sacrifice their health for this. Yes, they're getting paid, but most players coming through the NHL don't have six-year contracts paying them $7M a season, and that certainly won't be the case on tanking teams aside from buying bad contracts for draft picks. Tanking rosters are filled with a lot of bad players for a specific purpose: tanking. In other words, guys who won't have much of an NHL career are guys we find on these rosters. It always kind of struck me as kind of sick that these guys are asked to put their bodies on the line with no hope of a payoff at the end of the season. Again, yes, maybe just reaching the NHL is fulfilling a dream and they're still getting paid and all that. It just feels wrong that guys are being asked to sacrifice their health with their bosses ensuring they won't reap rewards at the end of it.

As such, if teams wish to continue tanking, then the general managers need to put their bodies on the line as well. My proposal is that the bottom four teams have their general managers take part in a round robin cage fight tournament with the two best records meeting in the final and the winner taking first overall. Sure, it may seem a bit barbaric, but this is a sport that allows both fighting and tanking. It only makes sense that we combine both at once. Thanks to Brian Burke for the inspiration.

All analysts have to be drunk for the pre-show, the actual draft, and the post-show analysis

I haven't been thinking a lot about hockey over the last six weeks but one thing I have been thinking about is the marketability of hockey players. One critique I often see is that players don't show their personalities enough, and that's true. I would say, however, that there's not much upside to showing personality as an NHL player. These aren't guys waiting on $50M national endorsement contracts and they aren't guys who will get the red carpet treatment in most places overseas (or even in their own cities, for that matter). Hockey just isn't big enough. For that reason, NHL players can't expect to get much reward from being outspoken or outlandish. Maybe you get a Tim Hortons commercial, and maybe, just maybe, every few years we'll see someone like Crosby in a national commercial. That's about it. As such, I think players mostly keep to themselves because there's no upside to showing personality in hockey.

The one instance this isn't true is when they're drunk. Remember the NHL All-Star Game when they had the fantasy draft, and all the players were three sheets to the wind just ripping into each other? That was awesome. Did anyone catch the 2011 Bruins reunion a couple days ago? That was a bunch of guys getting drunk and chirping each other, mostly. It's not the highest end of comedy, to be sure, but it's a heck of a lot better than the canned quotes we usually get in interviews.

There is a downside, of course, as anyone who's consumed too much alcohol in public can attest, but I'm sure there would be no shortage of volunteers. I want Brad Marchand seven pints deep making fun of some 18-year old's hair while Zdeno Chara is trying to make bunny ears out of his draft notes. Let's make it happen.

Gritty replaces Gary Bettman

The NHL isn't exactly a bastion of great ideas, but one fantastic idea from the last few years was the creation of Gritty. He's about as cuddly as an STD, but that's what gives him appeal; he's our STD. The pranks, the antics, the twitter videos, the court case, it's all stuff that we wish we could do on a daily basis but never can. At least not without losing, let's say, significant standing in our respective communities. But he is us, and that's what makes him special.

That's also what should make him an integral part of the draft. He's one of the few things that transcends the NHL into other sports, and his antics on a draft stage is maybe something that could get the NHL on Sportscenter. This is a league and a sport in desperate need of some personality (see: above) and Gritty has that in spades. It should be him, not the commissioner, announcing which teams will be drafting next and which trades are happening.

I can hear some people saying, "but Mike, Gritty doesn't talk?" To that, I say, "he doesn't have to." I have enough faith in Gritty that he can figure out a way to communicate his thoughts and feelings with all of us.

Every team has to complete one draft-day trade

Let's face it: without trades, the draft is boring. I know that won't be popular with my prospect brethren, but I'm looking at this as a fan, not an analyst. As a fan, I probably care about three things: who did my team take, is there a good player dropping far enough to a spot where my team might take him, and will they make a trade? Fans of the Minnesota Wild don't care that the 18^th-ranked player went 15^th overall to the New York Islanders. And why would they? Most drafted players don't have much of an impact, and of those who do, it's usually years down the road before they become significant pieces. Most fans will have forgotten about everything about draft day by then; as a Habs fan, I know I certainly don't remember who was picked around the Mikhail Sergachev pick back in 2016. I do remember that they traded Sergachev a year later just before the draft, though.

So let's spice things up. We'll have certain limits – only one roster player has to be traded, only a second round pick, etc. – but we're going to force every team to shake things up on draft day. Three-way trades will certainly be allowed, given we have an odd number of teams in the league. Whenever a team is getting ready to step to the podium, Commissioner Gritty will hold up some Bristol board announcing a trade. I can't wait.

Teams can buy draft picks with cap space

One end-around for tanking would be to allow teams with loads of cap space to buy picks rather than sink an entire season. This isn't just applicable for the draft, but is more of a general comment that would impact the draft. Let's say $10M for a top-5 pick once we've had our cage fights to determine draft order, and then we take off $250K for every draft spot below fifth all the way to 31^st. Teams cannot buy picks outside the first round. That purchase price is counted against the team's salary cap for the next year, while the selling team gets some sort of percentage rebate, say an extra 10 percent of the purchase in cap space. It gets the tanking teams spending and hopefully prevents tanking in the first place, while allowing the selling team cap space to add help immediately. It might not help the Penguins much right now to get a player 24^th overall who might be a third liner in four years, but additional cap space can be weaponized immediately.

Anyway, those are just some ideas of mine. Yours?