Then there’s the second door. That one also starts with a belief, but this time it’s that the Stanley Cup playoffs don’t necessarily tell us much of anything.
Behind this door, the playoffs are a system that’s designed to produce excitement and drama and conflict and euphoria and lots and lots of revenue, but that also does a terrible job of telling us anything about who was actually the best team. A hot goalie here, some bad luck there, one bounce in overtime, and suddenly a series is over before we ever learned anything. In the end, one team is left. Was that team the best? Maybe, but if so it’s often coincidence.
You would think that over the course of a best of 7 series the odds of the higher ranked team coming out should be better than say NFL where it's one game with no 2nd chance to make up for not playing your best. Still in football more than not the top teams win in the playoffs as the wildcard teams rarely even make the Super Bowl. I don't think you can compare the NBA because the star players play the majority of the game and often the teams with the best players win but in the NHL it's more of a team game and it seems if a team from top to bottom plays their best hockey they can beat any team regardless of a talent deficiency. Also the NHL has the issue of the officials calling games different in the playoffs which is also an equalizer. It does seem like it's more about getting hot at the right time and getting the bounces.
Bottom line is that I don't think it's a good thing that the Lightning and Flames did not make it to the 2nd round as no league wants their best teams out of the spotlight at the beginning of the playoffs but both teams have to look in the mirror as for whatever reason they played their worst hockey at the time it mattered the most.
Last edited by Erick Estrada; 04-22-2019 at 01:22 PM.
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You would think that over the course of a best of 7 series the odds of the higher ranked team coming out should be better than say NFL where it's one game with no 2nd chance to make up for not playing your best. Still in football more than not the top teams win in the playoffs as the wildcard teams rarely even make the Super Bowl. I don't think you can compare the NBA because the star players play the majority of the game and often the teams with the best players win but in the NHL it's more of a team game and it seems if a team from top to bottom plays their best hockey they can beat any team regardless of a talent deficiency. Also the NHL has the issue of the officials calling games different in the playoffs which is also an equalizer. It does seem like it's more about getting hot at the right time and getting the bounces.
Bottom line is that I don't think it's a good thing that the Lightning and Flames did not make it to the 2nd round as no league wants their best teams out of the spotlight at the beginning of the playoffs but both teams have to look in the mirror as for whatever reason they played their worst hockey at the time it mattered the most.
It's funny. Gaudreau took a lot of flack on here on Friday for his missed penalty shot, and then his missed breakaway. But he was an inch away from scoring on both.
Gaudreau was all over the ice on Firday. Not always in good ways. But he was an inch away from being a hero versus a goat.
This is the quote that got me:
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By contrast, if you choose the second door, you can still enjoy the postseason. But it’s not the same. Now the playoffs are like reading that same mystery novel, only it’s been written by some hack who can’t be bothered to have any of it connect together. What happens on one page doesn’t have much to do with the last or the next, and when you get to the big reveal at the end it’s something that might not even make sense. You’re kept guessing, sure, but not in a good way. It feels less like an intricate puzzle, and more like flipping a handful of coins. It’s all still fun. It’s just not all that meaningful.
The playoffs this year feel like watching an episode Riverdale. Highly entertaining in short bursts, but unsatisfying in the long-term.
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Missed calls from the refs not seeing something is fine. Ignoring obvious penalties for who knows what reason is not.
I agree, completely. I'd really like the referees, or at least the lead referee, have to sit through a post-game press conference and answer for their missed calls. Obviously this will never happen, but it dammed well should.
I am not a fan of the two distinct referee standards between regular season and playoffs. I'm not a fan of "just let them play" in the playoffs. I've seen plenty of exciting games during the regular season, where things got called as they should be, to know that if they referee in the playoffs like they do in the regular season, it'll still be exciting. You can't have a "let them play" approach but then call X penalty but not Y penalty. But I'm sure to the average TV audience fan, they probably don't care/pick up on that as much.
This video by Vox on "Why underdogs do better in hockey than basketball" came out a year ago and popped up in my feed again. I thought it was appropriate for this thread. Hockey is an inherently random sport relative to other sports.
Regular season is becoming less and less important now.
Will make next year more tedious. Wins in the first half aren't going to matter a lot, because it'll ultimately all come down to how they're playing in the final weeks.
Shorter season would ensure healthier rosters and less fatigue. Honestly the last two weeks of the season just felt like killing time until we watched something that matters.
I think our ridiculous travel schedule didn't help with the wear of the season. 3 eastern trips in a 5 or 6 week span, one running through Vancouver and Florida. I think whoever scheduled that wasn't putting a lot of thought into it and didn't give a #### about the flames from a logistical standpoint.
Colorado had much more jump i think in part because of their massive mid season lull. Took a couple months off then started really playing just in time to squeak in and were already up to speed, while the flames were treading through meaningless games.
I dunno. But something is off. That wasn't the best the flames were capable of, not even close. But we're they so worn out that they could only bring 50%?
Even a 60 game season would be much more of a sprint in comparison. The quality of games would be higher.
As for the reffing, that's only improved with clarity on the rules, process of decisions and implementing it consistently across the league. Right now there is no structure there. There's a rulebook, but you can pretty much spin a wheel or flip a coin as to the outcome of the decisions.
I don't understand why regular season finishes are so devalued in North American sports. What's even the point of having a regular season?
It's much more impressive to sustain excellence over a full season rather than in a tournament of arbitrary length, especially in a sport where fluke goals and hot goalies hold so much sway over the outcome. That's not even taking into account all the officiating changes that happen.
Feels like a broken system that provides some cheap thrills based on luck and more revenue for the owners
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I don't understand why regular season finishes are so devalued in North American sports. What's even the point of having a regular season?
It's much more impressive to sustain excellence over a full season rather than in a tournament of arbitrary length, especially in a sport where fluke goals and hot goalies hold so much sway over the outcome. That's not even taking into account all the officiating changes that happen.
Feels like a broken system that provides some cheap thrills based on luck and more revenue for the owners
The non-playoff model devalues the regular season for the majority of teams. This year the Stanley Cup would have been wrapped up in January and all teams would be playing for nothing. The playoff model keeps 20 teams fans engaged with their teams right to the end of the regular season.
I’d like to see the division winners get 5 home fames in round one and get to play a tired team in game one by having the 7-10 wild cards have play in games.
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Another article on this subject from fivethirtyeight, called "Apparently the Regular Season is Irrelevant in the NHL":
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Ranked dead last in early January, the St. Louis Blues completed arguably the greatest midseason U-turn in NHL history by advancing to the conference semifinals. And that’s probably just the third-most-surprising storyline of this young postseason. Tampa Bay and Calgary, the top seeds in each conference, survived less than two weeks, combining to win a single game. Never before had the President’s Trophy-winning team been swept. Never before had the top seeds both been eliminated in the opening round....
These gargantuan first-round upsets are rare, regardless of the sport. In MLB’s wild-card era, only five teams touting the best conference record have failed to reach the second round, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. In the NBA, a 1- or 2-seed hasn’t lost in the opening round of the playoffs since the top-seeded Chicago Bulls in 2012. But with its randomness, hockey stands out for its opportunities to surprise. Research by Michael J. Lopez, Gregory J. Matthews and Benjamin S. Baumer found that, on average, the better NBA team in a best-of-7 series advances 80 percent of the time. To match that rate, the NHL would require a best-of-51 series.
Everyone wants parity but it’s not always that great. It’s entertaining watching someone trying to knock off a great team or player.
Unfortunately the parity and randomness have yet to work in our favor at all.
I would say all the talk of parity is overstated anyway.
Look at the teams that made the finals the 3 seasons preceeding the 05 lockout.
Hurricanes, Ducks, Flames.
It's the same as it was before the cap IMO.
The biggest difference is that the window to be a great team has been shortened. You don't get a ten year contender window anymore.
In each individual season we still see teams that are just as dominant as the big boys were pre-cap.
I think the nature of hockey just provides more opportunities for upsets. They play with a frozen, irregularly shaped puck. Bounces happen.
I also think the way they officiate the game in the playoffs makes it easier for less skilled teams to negate more skilled ones but that's a whole other topic.
It’s great to have excitement and unpredictability, but the NHL is running into credibility issues with regards to their regular season that is doing more harm than playoff excitement can make up for. I think in summary what happened in the first round is an unmitigated disaster. In the last 15 years the Presidents Trophy winner has made the finals 3 times and won twice. That’s a joke. No, the regular season really doesn’t matter.
Here is one change I would propose to make home ice more meaningful (and more fun and interesting): get rid of the ‘regulation rink.’ Allow teams to have lee way in the way baseball teams do in determining their rink dimensions. This would be a throwback to the pre-Bettman era. One of the reasons I grew up a Flames fan in Buffalo was that it was the most fun watching the team that played on the massive Olympic ice surface (especially compared to Boston and Buffalo who played in close quarters). Yes, this could create some seating issues (it would be interesting to better study that), but I think the upshot of creating a home ice advantage that actually mattered would be better for the sport. Even subtle differences in rink measurements could be a significant factor for road teams to account for, and more than anything else create a layer of discomfort that just does not exist for road teams today.
The non-playoff model devalues the regular season for the majority of teams. This year the Stanley Cup would have been wrapped up in January and all teams would be playing for nothing. The playoff model keeps 20 teams fans engaged with their teams right to the end of the regular season.
I’d like to see the division winners get 5 home fames in round one and get to play a tired team in game one by having the 7-10 wild cards have play in games.
Yes, that is true. I guess I’d like the league title mechanism to reward the best team over the season instead of artificially propping up fan interest. I think there can be a middle ground with more tournaments so fans of teams who aren’t winning the league over the season have something to cheer for, like in world football. but I guess that’s impossible with the franchise-cartel model of the North American sports.
I like the idea someone brought up of making the playoffs harder to get into. Could also give division winners a bye into the quarter finals, which seems like the best compromise
I don't have a problem with the current system. Playoff hockey is so different, so much more intense than regular-season hockey, that it's almost a different sport. You simply can't generate that kind of intensity in an 82 game regular season. Too many games. And too many games of those games featuring opponents who don't have any strong feelings towards one another.
I don't see how the European football model, where you know a third of the way through the season if your team has any chance of topping the league, and it's evident two-thirds of the way through the season who the 2-3 teams who might win are, would be an improvement. Would we really want to see the Lightning awarded as the top team in the NHL following a Wednesday night game in early March against the Devils that 2% of hockey fans watched?
I think most hockey fans like that a team playing with more intensity and team cohesion can win a 7-game series against a more skilled roster. That high value placed on intensity and mental toughness is what separates hockey from most other sports.
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Originally Posted by fotze
If this day gets you riled up, you obviously aren't numb to the disappointment yet to be a real fan.
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I've said it in other threads, but I do miss when bad teams were bad. There was something special about the Blackhawks finally entering the realm of 'good team' and Cinderella stories actually felt like a team overcoming adversity. I don't know how you ever get back to it, and it's likely 'grass is greener' but never-the-less I don't think I like this 'anyone can win!' 2019 playoffs better than the playoffs I remember.
However, if the teams are going to be entering the arena this even by design - and we're comparing the wills of the gathered pawns in a best-of-7... the game has to function properly.
They use 2019 technology to build parity in communication and research... so the game isn't exactly 'classic' and untouched anymore. Which is the only reason I can assume for the NHL to roll out the ineffective and heavily criticized "2 humans standing in the middle of the action" that was appropriate in 1920. This game needs to be officiated well, and we've seen success in other sports. It's possible, you just need people doing good jobs and to actually invest in your on-ice product. I'm floored by how inconsistent reffing, reviews, and suspensions are and yet I see a large consensus from fans on the right call quite often - and these are biased, likely intoxicated un-trained refs demonstrating that it's not that damn hard. Whether by influence or gross incompetence, the decision maker frequently chooses the wrong option. Is it the rulebook? Is it poor management? Are they that dumb? There is no way this can't be improved, and the NHL asks fans to pay good money for a garbage product. If it wasn't for their freelancers putting on a good show, the NHL would deservedly be out of business.
I would love to know what people in the situation room and refs on the ice really think about the job they're doing. Do they know the right call and there's something that they always have to bend to?
The classic hockey with human error was a different hockey than today in every facet but how calls are made. GMs used to make trades with feet-on-the-ground research and without hundreds of scouts, the internet and video of every 15-30 year old player they could imagine. This parity is only possible with technology, so it's time to refresh this rag-tag group of losers to something more befitting of what they ask us to pay for.
Last edited by Split98; 04-25-2019 at 10:10 AM.
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I don't have a problem with the current system. Playoff hockey is so different, so much more intense than regular-season hockey, that it's almost a different sport. You simply can't generate that kind of intensity in an 82 game regular season. Too many games. And too many games of those games featuring opponents who don't have any strong feelings towards one another.
I don't see how the European football model, where you know a third of the way through the season if your team has any chance of topping the league, and it's evident two-thirds of the way through the season who the 2-3 teams who might win are, would be an improvement. Would we really want to see the Lightning awarded as the top team in the NHL following a Wednesday night game in early March against the Devils that 2% of hockey fans watched?
I think most hockey fans like that a team playing with more intensity and team cohesion can win a 7-game series against a more skilled roster. That high value placed on intensity and mental toughness is what separates hockey from most other sports.
I understand that, but I think you need some sort of compromise. We know that a shorter season and fewer PO teams is not happening because of $$$. If anything, they will probably add teams. So, you need some sort of compromise - bye for the division winners or 2-1-2-1-1 advantage for them (5 home games)...
What can no longer be considered random - a Canadian team has not won the Cup since 1993 (a generation ago). No Canadian team made the second round this year.
Beyond bad luck, bad management, we have to conclude that Canadian teams are at a real competitive disadvantage. Is this something the NHL could or should address?
