West vs East - Why does the Western Conference always dominate?

[vilzeh]

Originally Posted by TjRhythmic

I think the time difference is key. Teams coming east they are used to playing at a certain time, and you get into a routine of playing at a certain time, and going to bed a certain time. You then come out west and instead of playing at 5 est, your playiing at 8 or 9 est.

Might not seem like a big deal but athletes, especially pro athletes are creatures of habit. They eat at pretty much the same time, go to sleep at the same time, have pre game naps at the same time, etc. They body gets into that routine and they essentially get jet lag.

My theory anyways.

Vice versa?

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by zukes

In baseball and football it is less so becuase the travel is so different.

Interesting that you should mention baseball, because MLB is lopsided in a different way:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1...e-al-or-the-nl

The American League has been absolutely killing the National League in interleague play. For ten years in a row now, the AL as a whole has had a winning record vs. NL opponents. There are a lot of theories about why this is; you can find some in the article linked above.

But to me, the most plausible explanation is that the AL needs to be better. The Red Sox and Yankees, the two richest teams in baseball, are in the AL, and everybody else has to compete with them. (It will be interesting to see if that changes now that the Dodgers are spending big money.) That means you get teams like Billy Beane's Oakland A's, who try much harder to compete on a limited budget than you normally see with small-market teams in the NL.

Some of you will remember the Flames of the 1980s. That team only won one championship, but most knowledgeable observers agreed that the Flames were an elite team that just couldn't get by the Oilers most years. The Battle of Alberta mattered, so Cliff Fletcher had the tough job of building a team that could hold its own with the guys up north.

At the same time, in the old Norris division, there were years when a .500 record was good enough to win the division. Harold Ballard's Maple Leafs were competing with nothing and nobody. More often than not, one of the other four teams in the Norris would suck so badly that the Leafs would make the playoffs by default. The Flames tried hard and played up to the level of the competition. The Leafs played down to the level of their competition because they didn't have to try.

It also helped that the top draft picks went to the teams that missed the playoffs. You could miss the playoffs with a winning record, but you would still get a top-5 draft pick, because only 5 teams missed. If draft order was based purely on points in the standings, a strong division would eventually get starved of high-end picks and would gradually come back down to earth. That didn't happen, because every division was guaranteed at least one top-5 pick per year.

I think something similar is at work with the conferences now. The Eastern Conference has teams like the Rangers and Leafs, who have so much money that they can basically afford to have lazy management. (Thanks to the cap, they can't dominate by sheer money power like the Yankees and Red Sox.) Then there are teams like the Islanders and Florida, which are hardly even trying to win most years. It's a much easier competitive environment. In the West, every GM was measured against Detroit, and now that Detroit is gone, they are getting measured against Chicago and San Jose.

In 2009-10, the Flames missed the playoffs with 90 points, and within a few months Darryl Sutter was fired as GM. That same year, Philadelphia and Montreal were in the Eastern Conference finals with 88 points each. Paul Holmgren and Pierre Gauthier kept their jobs.

It's just tougher to survive in the Western Conference, and those GMs who do survive make sure that it stays tough.

[DeluxeMoustache]

Amazing playoff implications in the new format.

In the Metropolitan division, teams 2 and 3 are the Isles and Caps with 15 and 14 points in 14 games apiece. The 2 east wildcards are marginally better, with 16 points in 13 and 15 games. Playoff cutoff is .500 (which is bad counting loser points)

Compare to the Pacific (lucky Flames) where the guaranteed spots are currently occupied by Anaheim and Phoenix with 23 and 22 points in 15 games.

So the Flames, presuming things don't shift dramatically, fight with Vancouver, who has started at 21 points in 16, and what could hopefully be a logjam starting with recent Cup
champs LA who are 3 games above .500

As entertaining as the team is, and as much as they arguably deserved a better fate the last 2 games, it is only tougher from this point forward.

They failed to get points against the last 2 east teams, but Detroit and Toronto are both very strong east teams this year

[TurnedTheCorner]

East is 35-50-9 against the West now. Starting to normalize a bit.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by TurnedTheCorner

East is 35-50-9 against the West now. Starting to normalize a bit.

If winning 37 percent of your games is ‘normal’, the Flames should forget about rebuilding and start planning the parade.

[Resolute 14]

Remarkably stupid comment, Jay, given even you should be capable of understanding what the phrase "starting to normalize" means. And the shot against the Flames is both irrelevant and nonsensical.

[flamesfever]

I believe the west is much less polluted, and therefore players have less "brain fog".

[The Original FFIV]

Looked at the standings and if the season ended today, we would have the 10th overall pick in the draft, barring a lottery win. Only Western teams below us are Winnipeg and of course Edmonton.

That is bat sh*t crazy, considering we are year 1 of a rebuild. 10th overall in a subpar draft year that is not deep in D is not where we need to be in order to get better. I realize that we are not even past the quarter post of the season and lots of hockey to be played but if patterns hold, there will be a lot of Eastern teams picking ahead of us.

[Jay Random]

Originally Posted by Resolute 14

Remarkably stupid comment, Jay, given even you should be capable of understanding what the phrase "starting to normalize" means. And the shot against the Flames is both irrelevant and nonsensical.

'Even I' should be capable? Gee, thanks for saying that I'm dumber than a bag of rocks.

I would explain why the comment made sense and exactly what sense it made, since you have obviously missed it, but I can see that you're not interested in listening. You'd rather hurl personal abuse.

[Caged Great]

Originally Posted by The Original FFIV

Looked at the standings and if the season ended today, we would have the 10th overall pick in the draft, barring a lottery win. Only Western teams below us are Winnipeg and of course Edmonton.

That is bat sh*t crazy, considering we are year 1 of a rebuild. 10th overall in a subpar draft year that is not deep in D is not where we need to be in order to get better. I realize that we are not even past the quarter post of the season and lots of hockey to be played but if patterns hold, there will be a lot of Eastern teams picking ahead of us.

There are about 7 good forwards in this draft, and only 2 or 3 good d-men (Other than Ekblad, the forwards are all better than the remaining D). If we pick outside the top 4 (or wherever Ekblad gets picked) then we should draft a forward. I would then focus more on defense perhaps through the rest of the draft, unless there was a significantly better forward up at the time.

We could focus on either acquiring some support in the defense corp through free agency or trade. There are guys like Boyle, Markov, Timonen, Zidlicky, Orpik, Mitchell, Tallinder, Girardi, Robidas, Ericsson are free agents at the end of the year. We could sign one or two and have a decent team. Unfortunately, young defense will be an issue for a while, but you can add stop gaps like some of those above while hoping guys like Brodie, Sieloff and Wotherspoon take off and emerge as quality defenders long term. It's also not necessarily a bad thing to have veterans on the defense corp when you have a young team.

[The Original FFIV]

Originally Posted by Caged Great

There are about 7 good forwards in this draft, and only 2 or 3 good d-men (Other than Ekblad, the forwards are all better than the remaining D). If we pick outside the top 4 (or wherever Ekblad gets picked) then we should draft a forward. I would then focus more on defense perhaps through the rest of the draft, unless there was a significantly better forward up at the time.

We could focus on either acquiring some support in the defense corp through free agency or trade. There are guys like Boyle, Markov, Timonen, Zidlicky, Orpik, Mitchell, Tallinder, Girardi, Robidas, Ericsson are free agents at the end of the year. We could sign one or two and have a decent team. Unfortunately, young defense will be an issue for a while, but you can add stop gaps like some of those above while hoping guys like Brodie, Sieloff and Wotherspoon take off and emerge as quality defenders long term. It's also not necessarily a bad thing to have veterans on the defense corp when you have a young team.

McKeown and Fleury are the next two dmen after Ekblad and Brycen Martin is the next highest ranked dman after that. It is fluid after that but if things hold agree that we are looking at a F. Maybe we should pull an Islanders and draft all d after our first and hope one of them turns out *sarcasm intended *

UFA market - don't see it happening. We aren't a preferred destination given that we are going through a rebuild. Might be able to get a vet who is dollar driven and/or isn't getting offers from contenders.

[Shawnski]

Looking at the conference standings today, only one team in the East would be in a playoff position in the west, and it would be a tie at that (5th-9th).... Tampa. Yikes! 15 of 16 teams would be out of the picture.

[moon]

Originally Posted by Shawnski

Looking at the conference standings today, only one team in the East would be in a playoff position in the west, and it would be a tie at that (5th-9th).... Tampa. Yikes! 15 of 16 teams would be out of the picture.

Boston and Pittsburgh likely jump Vancouver and maybe Minnesota if given the same numbers of games, but still a pretty shocking indication of the disparity between the two conferences so far if maybe 3 teams out of 16 would be Eastern teams and those 3 would be in the bottom half of the play-off teams.

[Poe969]

The east is just terrible.

Every time I see this thread, all I can think of is this
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gODZzSOelss

[Nsd1]

@mirtle: West now has a 72-28-11 record against the East. At this rate it'll take 15+ more points to finish eighth in one conference over the other.

[powderjunkie]

As of today, the 1st place team in the East would be 9th in the west.


Based on % of available points, Boston (.690) is actually a smidge ahead of Anaheim (and only Anaheim - odd situation where they are 1st in the west in points but 8th best in point % with .688). St. Louis is 1st with .775 of all available points.

Vancouver (.565) is also in 10th place behind Dallas (.600).

[Bandwagon In Flames]

Originally Posted by powderjunkie

As of today, the 1st place team in the East would be 9th in the west.


Based on % of available points, Boston (.690) is actually a smidge ahead of Anaheim (and only Anaheim - odd situation where they are 1st in the west in points but 8th best in point % with .688). St. Louis is 1st with .775 of all available points.

Vancouver (.565) is also in 10th place behind Dallas (.600).

That is just disgusting and starting to make this league a joke. How do we fix this? The only thing I can think of is less inter-conference play. It's nice to see the eastern teams that don't visit as often, but it's not fair to the fans in the east. They are watching much more losses compared to the west (with the exception of the few bottom feeders in the west)

[squiggs96]

Originally Posted by Jay Random

Interesting that you should mention baseball, because MLB is lopsided in a different way:

http://bleacherreport.com/articles/1...e-al-or-the-nl

The American League has been absolutely killing the National League in interleague play. For ten years in a row now, the AL as a whole has had a winning record vs. NL opponents. There are a lot of theories about why this is; you can find some in the article linked above.

The biggest reason AL teams have a better record over the NL is the DH. The DH has the highest average salary in MLB. You can carry a guy who is a terrible fielder as long as he can hit. When the NL teams go to the AL parks to play, they don't have another huge bat that has just been sitting on the bench. They use the spot to give one of their veterans some at bats, without needing to play the field. When they play in the NL parks, and hit for the pitcher's spot, they have the huge bat. An AL team can afford to keep the bat on the bench for those 7-8 games in an NL park, whereas an NL team can't just keep a guy ready to pinch hit when their benches are so small before the September call ups.

[thefoss1957]

I feel that there are a couple of reasons for the discrepancy between East and West. I think that TJrhythmic is partially correct...Western teams have to be more flexible in routine and rhythm, and are affected less by the variations...my guys, for instance, up to last year, had to be prepared to play in all four time zones for CONFERENCE games, less repetition of routine game to game (but now that Wings And BJs are gone, the West is reduced to 3 time zones). Secondly, I believe that more regular extended travel makes for better team chemistry. My 'Hawks, for instance, are currently on the annual "circus" road trip, where Ringling Bros & B & B take over the UC for 2 weeks. This trip seems to be a huge indicator of how well the team can bond, and often the potential for success can be projected from this 2 week performance. (True also for the NBA Bulls...same kind of trip...same reasons). They are stuck with each other for 2 weeks, and this can make or break "the Room." Eastern teams are nearly always in range of "home", and can often return on off days, a luxury not afforded in extended trips for the West. Even on a smaller scale than the "Circus" trip, Western teams spend more time together, as a group, on travel, with greater regularity. Lastly, there is a clear difference in style of play, East and West. The West seems to have more teams playing an aggressive, physical, forechecking game...the East, a passive trapping, defensive game. I think, for fans AND players, the Western style, makes the game more fun to watch OR play. And this tends to stifle talent and team offense far less than the rigid systems that many East teams impose.

All this is just theory and observation by this fan...all the factors are hard to prove, except the W/L numbers are there to speculate on.

[troutman]

Theory - there is more pressure in many Eastern markets to succeed, so they do not have the necessary patience to properly build a team.