Call it what you will, but Gary Bettman says NHL clubs aren't intentionally losing.

"Our teams don't tank," the commissioner told the National Post's Michael Traikos at the general managers meetings Wednesday.

"If you're a team that knows it's not going to make the playoffs and you want to start focusing on the rebuild, you're going to do certain things unrelated to the draft that are going to give you assets that are going to help you develop for the future."

The NHL's old system gave the highest odds of winning the draft lottery and the right to draft first overall to the league's worst team, but the new format involves a separate lottery for each of the top three picks.

"The beauty of a weighted lottery is there's no incentive to doing anything other than win," Bettman said. "We have a system that we think works."

One general manager agrees.

"There’s no incentive to lose now," said Ottawa Senators GM Bryan Murray. "The odds are no longer in your favor. The Toronto Maple Leafs, if they happen to be that team (that finishes last), have a 20 percent chance of winning (the lottery). Any guy that questions it now is wrong."

Bettman has no issues with the way the Leafs are rebuilding.

"I think they've decided that they need to regroup and … they're developing the young kids and they're building for the future," he said. "I'm not an expert in putting teams together, but it's clear that they have a plan and they're sticking to it. And that's the most important thing."

The Buffalo Sabres finished dead last in both of the past two seasons, but were awarded the second overall pick (Sam Reinhart and Jack Eichel, respectively) in 2014 and 2015.

The new three-tiered lottery doesn't fully discourage what general managers do, but Sabres GM Tim Murray says it might help how their work is perceived.

"Does that change how we do business? Probably not," Murray said. "Does it change the perception of what we're doing? Maybe it does."

Arizona Coyotes GM Don Maloney admitted in February that his attitude last season was, "If we were going to be bad ... let's be real bad," and that he "did not do much" to help the team in the last two months, when the opportunity to draft Connor McDavid was within reach.

The Coyotes were ultimately awarded the third overall selection, drafting Dylan Strome, while the Edmonton Oilers won the lottery and chose McDavid, giving them a fourth first overall pick in six years.

Copyright © 2016 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.