I don't dislike it. Sucks to lose one of our greatest preys in Dallas, but the postseason hockey should be a little more intense. Just have to play it out and see how we like it through experience. Probably most interesting is the potential to balance out the league by adding two more teams into the mix...
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"It has not been a good day. I lost my glasses early this morning and I had to go buy a pair of 79 dollar reading glasses today. 79 bucks. You can literally get them at Costco, three-for-20." - Darryl Sutter's response to going up 2-0 in the series.
At first I had a thought like that, but then I realized that only one team comes out of each "conference," so the Kings couldn't play the Sharks in the finals (provided they don't do West and East finals before the Cup finals). If they go for the straight 1 - 4 seeding for the last two rounds of the playoffs regardless of conference affiliation, the Kings could end up playing the Wings in the finals.
At first I had a thought like that, but then I realized that only one team comes out of each "conference," so the Kings couldn't play the Sharks in the finals (provided they don't do West and East finals before the Cup finals). If they go for the straight 1 - 4 seeding for the last two rounds of the playoffs regardless of conference affiliation, the Kings could end up playing the Wings in the finals.
You're right, of course. It could be Kings vs some of our old Western Conference opponents, but never against a team in our own "conference".
While I love the concept, this layout is simply not fair to teams in the 8 team conferences. A squad in the 7 team conference has to beat out one less team to make the playoffs. That's huge with the parity in the league. Half the teams in two conferences make the playoffs, while 57% do in the other two.
Carolina, Jersey, and the NYI all are not good and the only one that has any upside for the immediate future is the NYI, and we know how that usually turns out. The playoff teams would be set in that conference from Day 1. Unless of course they expand, in which nothing changes as those conferences will have bottom feeders to fatten up on. If they go with this and I am the Kings, I lobby hard to get Colorado moved to the Central. They are closer to Dallas, Minneapolis, and St. Louis than any other team in the NW sans Phoenix (Who will be likely moving). No reason the Kings can't get a favorable layout out of this. Western teams already travel far more than Eastern ones, so give them 7 teams to balance it out. The East already has enough advantages.
But seriously, no more expansion please. Some franchises are struggling right now, and it's not like there are big markets begging for a team. I don't want to see another work stoppage down the road due to small markets not being able to keep up.
The toughest part is if you have an incredibly tough team in your "Conference" like the Kings had with Edmonton in the Smythe Division in the 80s. Assuming that your team is playing well, you can count on meeting that team in the 2nd round every year.
The toughest part is if you have an incredibly tough team in your "Conference" like the Kings had with Edmonton in the Smythe Division in the 80s. Assuming that your team is playing well, you can count on meeting that team in the 2nd round every year.
This is going to take some time to get used to. As of now, I'm not a big fan of this new direction....I'll get over it after a long summer of no hockey.
... or your team get crushed year after year - been there, done that
How is that different then what we have now? I mean...essentially Vancouver, Detroit, San Jose have been the top 3 seeds almost every year for a while...with the bottom seeds being a combo of Nashville, LA, Anaheim, Phoenix.
Keep in mind the Kings miss the playoffs last year under this system. Dallas with fewer points, makes it.
It's a bit misleading comparing last seasons results to this new format as we don't know how the Kings will perform with a newly revised schedule under this format. Remember, they will play a home-and-home series against every team in the East.
I don't have a problem with the format, and it also gives the league flexibility in case they do decide to expand in the future to 32 teams.
The toughest part is if you have an incredibly tough team in your "Conference" like the Kings had with Edmonton in the Smythe Division in the 80s. Assuming that your team is playing well, you can count on meeting that team in the 2nd round every year.
Well it's a good thing there aren't any 80's Oilers hanging around anywhere these days.
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Originally Posted by Fishhead
Keep in mind the Kings miss the playoffs last year under this system. Dallas with fewer points, makes it.
Keep in mind that you can't really take points from one schedule format and equate them to a different potential point total in a different schedule format. Not that the Kings wouldn't have ended up missing the playoffs under this new alignment anyway, but it's just different.
You really can't look at it that way anyway. If the 3rd round ends up being reseeded, then none of the conferences will be exclusively bound together. So what would happen in one conference has little to do with what happens in another. Every team knows what they'll need to do in order to make the playoffs starting next year, so if you do better than the teams that you're competing with for a playoff spot, then you'll be fine. There's no crying in baseball, and there isn't any in hockey either. If you're the 5th place team in one conference, but have a better record than some 4th place team in another, it's going to even out over the years, so just suck it up and deal with it.
