Could Further Expansion Cause the NHL To Drop From Four Divisions to Just the Two Conferences?
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- Опубліковано 26 вер 2024
- Hey all and you know how much I like to discuss this stuff, so here we go again.
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i'm tired of the kings playing the oilers in the 1st rd
As an oilers fan, I’m not
Never tired of Leafs losing to Bruins in the first tho 😹
@@kaz6854 dont think the bruins will make the playoffs w out swayman
but we have studied it, and the current system ends up being the same teams playing each other 8 out of 10 times.
@@LilSnoupI'm also an Oilers fan, but I hate it, the Kings and the 1-3-1 are so boring to watch. You're also seriously testing your luck trying to beat the exact same team every year! At least that's what my superstitious tells me.
You're the man THG, keepin' up the good work as usual.
5:55: The discussion of expanding the playoffs. A real life scenario is playing out in baseball right now because of the expansion of the playoffs to include 3 wild card teams. The Detroit Tigers, who have been bad for YEARS, have gone on a tear in September and may get that third wild card spot. They are the talk of baseball right now. Under the old system, they would be almost eliminated today, being 3 1/2 games behind with only 5 games to play and not many people would care or pay attention. Instead they had a crowd of over 30,000 people at tonight's game. The games for this team and 3 other contenders mean something right now. They wouldn't under the old system and there would far fewer people in the ballpark and watching the games on TV.
For real. The folks that say less teams should make the playoffs need to realize that it's just better marketing and maintains the league's health if more teams have a legitimate shot at a title. If you can make the playoffs, anything's possible, but you do have to make the playoffs for that phrase to matter.
More than half the teams SHOULD miss the playoffs. An 82 game regular season should matter more.
Idk, I feel like that’s kinda less fun. That means more fans who can watch their team play in the postseason less often, and fewer playoff games to watch for the fans of the teams that do make it.
@@Oscar31YT But they would matter the more, and so would the regular season.
Thanks for this, but right now you play only some of the teams in your division 4 times. So already diluted meaning of the divisions
I'm just impressed you took the time to top-down alphabetize the magnets.
You’re spot-on regarding rivalries. Bring a Blues fan, I now miss the Red Wings. Used to hate them, now I miss them. It’s strange
Wings fan, I agree. I mean, I was actually kinda happy for the Blues fans to see their team win a Cup. What the hell is that?!
@@McSomething15Fucking feelings man
As a Blues fan, I feel we have more of a rivalry with Minnesota than say Chicago.
As a Habs fan that hated the Nordiques, I miss them.
@@MissileD11 As a Wild fan I say we have more of a rivalry with StL than we do with the Jets or the Hawks too.
That Golden Seals jersey is sweet!
Dang, I must be old. I remember when two teams made the playoffs in baseball...
I'd be more of a fan of reginal divisions. That would sync back up some rivalries, and keep travel costs down at the aame time.
32 is good for awhile
Boston only plays Montreal 3x this year I think. We should see far more
All playoff teams in the East want another crack at Boston!😂
The Bruins are the Habs' biggest rivals. It sucks we only get to see them lock up in battle three times this year. No other team comes close to look forward to on the calendar every season.
Or 6 Divisions, 3 in each conference.
When they get to 36 teams this will be the setup
could just do 40 teams
with eight divisions of 5 teams each?
play the other 39 teams twice (78) and then the 4 other teams in your division an extra once each for 82.
8 division winners get the top 8 playoffs spots and then play-in games for spots 9 thru 16 in the bracket or something idk
For 36 teams - 6 divisions of 6. 2 Conferences. 2 x each non-division teams. 2 x 30 =60. 4 games each division rival 4 x 5 = 20. 20 + 60 = 80 games reg. season. Top 2 each division qualify for playoff and get a bye. Next 4 teams qualify for best of 3 preliminary round. For next round 1 vs. 8/9, 2 vs 7/10, 3 vs. 6 and 4 vs. 5. EDIT If have to play 84 games - Option 1 Play all 4 games within your division 2 home/2 away rotate bye team each season. Option 2 Play 1 team from each other in-conference, division at home and another team away rotating the teams each season.
Came here to say exactly this. 100% agree
6x6 yes. Forgot the guys formula i saw but came to 84 games fine. 80 sure. NO byes and NO short series. 6 division winners , 2 wild card teams, go. You have 84 games to find the extra point to make sure you get in. No excuses. Byes, while injuries heal, let your players get cold and would be a disadvantage imo.
All that said more is not always better. No need to expand.
@@anthonyfaccaro7118 That may have been my regular season/division alignment. The playoff format I suggested would have been to go back to the 1999-2013 format with 8 teams per conference and the division winners guaranteed a top 3 seed. The only change was a best-of-three play between the 8 and 9 seeds for the sake of keeping the playoffs at 50-50. My feeling about keeping the wildcard setup with 6 divisions is the disparity between divisions will only be more apparent with more divisions so reserving 6 spots spread over three divisions and doing conference seeding I think is a bad idea.
While I like this idea, I don't think the NHL wants to go back to the 6 division format
@@tohasbo08 More teams means smaller/more divisions to keep rivalries in Reg. season.
I'd love completely in-conference play, but yeah owners want McDavid and Crosby to come to town
I'm from Ontario and I've watched countless sports in my 38 years of existence on this planet. In with Real Madrid-Barcelona, PSG-Marseille, Yankees-RedSox, Bears-Packers I will say with 0,000 hesitation that the Montreal-Québec rivalry fits in that category. The fact that the NHL, a league already seriously challenged for eyeballs, marketing and popularity finding a way to discard this rivalry and not bringing it back despite the countless opportunities, an absolute gem of an arena and a potential owner that owns the biggest media conglomerate in Quebec is the absolute peak NHL getting in its own way.
Not sure about that. They don't want local viewership from local markets.
Toronto/Ottawa isn't a great rivalry, just convenient. I get the difference in standings and history, but that would be true for any team brought back to QC.
@@lenny5774 That's a great point. Hasn't been relevant in a long time
@@people3865 You do know that sportsnet owns the French rights as well right ? They sublicenced it to TVA. Now imagine selling national rights for 2 teams instead of just one.
@@lenny5774 Toronto is a passionate market, Ottawa isnt or at least not constantly. Its tough to build a rivalry when markets are so different. Quebec is uberpassionate. My family from Quebec would go at eachother's troats when habs played nords
They should put a team in Alaska 🤭
And Hawaii
Yeah no. Too small and their economy isn't very good
And Mexico
@@kevinbadger8030 and good luck trying to get any free agent to sign there!
@@kevinbadger8030 youre kidding if you think 260,000 alaskans wouldnt go crazy over a hockey team. its the only thing to do in the entire state. i get its not gonna happen for money reasons, but in a perfect world theyd pack the barn every night
I think the league should stay at 32.
I also think they could go up a few games to help pay for the salary cap increase.
You're just asking for the Cup to be awarded in early July so don't be surprised if people get really mad at that.
If there's 36 teams you can have three 6-team divisions in each conference.
I’ve been watching hockey since 1986-87 and grew up in suburban Detroit; I live 7.5 hours north of Denver and if they went to NO inter conference games then I would have to travel back to Michigan to watch games live or change my fandom to someone closer to Wyoming. As a Wingnut, I’m very much against rooting for the Avs because of the mid to late 90s but maybe I could cheer Utah?
Wings’ old Western conference rivalries with the Stars and Avs… I’d love to see a few more historic rivalry games between them.
Agree I live 2 hours east of Toronto and I cheer on Colorado
No inter conference games would get boring. Seeing the same match ups over and over again.
I agree. The SCF would be the only matchup of an East vs West team for that entire season! What a terrible idea
I like the idea of going back to 3 divisions per conference but instead of 5 teams you have 6.
Playoffs could be the 3 division winners get automatic bids and there is 5 wildcard teams if you keep the playoffs the same.
In a 36 team League and you expand the playoffs I have 2 ideas.
Crazy idea: Expand the playoffs to 12 top 4 get a buy into the second round. 5-12 play in the first round best of 5 then rounds 2-5 are best of 7.
Boring idea: expand it to 9 so that way we keep the playoffs to 50% of the conference. The wildcard round is just 8 vs 9; in a best of three over a Friday Saturday Sunday and main playoffs start Monday.
Smaller Divisions of 6 max - with alternating out of conference games home and away each year.
More Division and Conference Games
66 games to get every team into every barn- 16 DIVISIONAL games, weighted toward rivalries for divisions in which the math isn't as clean
If the NHL goes to say 36 teams you go from 4 divisions back to 6 with 6 teams in each division
I am a fan of the format of teams playing each team twice (35 x 2 = 70 games) and the other 12 games of an 82 game schedule will be left to rivalry games.
For example if it were my Pens, we'd have two extra games against Philly, Washington, Rangers, and Islanders, followed by one extra game against Columbus, Boston, Detroit, and New Jersey. That kind of thing. Trying to navigate that format for every team could be a challenge but it's possible.
Here’s my idea. Have 3 conferences of 12 teams each with 2 divisions of 6 teams. Eastern, Central & Western conferences to limit travel and build conference rivalries.
Schedule: Play 6 games against 5 teams in division (30 gms); 4 games each against 6 other teams in conference (24 gms). Then play 12 teams once each from other conferences on road and 12 teams once each from other conference at home. Then switch following year (24 gms). Like baseball is doing when playing teams in other league. That’s 78 games. Then league could schedule 4 games such as (ie top teams previous year in different conferences play home & home; original six play more often; Canadian teams play each other more often; international games or in-season tournament). I would go to 84 games and have 6 flexible games.
My Playoffs: Top 4 teams in each conference get auto playoff spot and 1 or 2 byes. Next 4 top teams in each conference have a “play-in” first round like the NBA. 2 winners from play-in in each conference then play teams 3 & 5 in their conference in a best of 5 in second round. Teams 1 & 2 get another bye. Winners of second round then play top 2 teams in a best of 7 series in round 3. Then 2 remaining teams in each conference play a best of 7 for conference title in round 4. Once the 3 conference winners are determined, the top ranked team of the 3 that lost in the conference finals would get a second chance to make it into the Stanley Cup Semi-Finals in round 5. The 2 semifinal winners in the Final, round 6.
Even though my plan is different, you have more division and conference rivalry games, reduced travel; 24 teams make the playoffs while top teams get 1 or 2 byes; schedule leaves 4-6 games for the league to schedule games that bring more interest.
divisions used to play eachother 8 games per year
Great job and some good what if scenarios
Whatever they do, the playoff format should be changed to 1-8, 2-7 etc. What they have now gets incredibly stale really fast, same teams playing each other year after year on round 1.
Get rid of divisions..
Give Atlanta a team, they could be in Quebec City by 2035
@@SmithTM14 And then back in the US by 2040.
6 games division, 2 conf, 1 other conference. I love the division games more than anything.
Patrick,Norris,Smythe,Gaines,get it done Betman!
No divisions sounds good to me. I'm sure there will be rivalries anyway.
I’d prefer if they did pods, don’t know how they’d break them up , maybe all 5 teams except one pod of 4, but there’s definitely not a lack of talent that injustifies expansion. Players will get better, talent won’t be watered down as you said.
Look to the most profitable league (NFL).
Many smaller divisions. Every team gets every team in their building and you get schedule space to build intense division rivalry.
At 32-35 teams, 8 divisions of 4/5. 4 wildcard spots in each conference.
If the league goes to 36, maybe 9 divisions of 4. Consider eliminate conferences or go to a 3 conference wildcard system. Playoffs are best in each division, two wildcard spots per division. 16th spot is best team not in that group in the league. A true wildcard.
I honestly think it might be worth it to go 6 teams per division to preserve the rivalries.
It's not difficult for scheduling..play every team 2 times and the rest in your division
36 teams. (Add one per division)
32 games inside division
16 games other division in conference
36 games other conference
84 games total.
Canada's population in the 1980s was almost half the population of today. Hockey has multiplied in popularity (and number of players) in the US and some European countries, specially Germany. Player development is also in a different world compared to 40 years ago in a lot of places.
The problem isn’t the shortage of all star talent… the problem is the shortage of proper role players needed to win a cup.
Think the kraken are going to be crap for 5 years. Got lucky once.
Well, not Ottawa Senators crap at least.
@@handelbaroque Well no one can be as crap as them.
They should make you commissioner. Or chairman of the board of directors 👀
Six 6-team divisions, making up two 18-team conferences. You play 5 teams in your division 4 times (20) and the other 30 teams twice (60).
The top 2 teams in each division make the playoffs, plus two conference wildcards, seeded by record (not division)
Just make it a group stage…Group East 1 (far left), East 2, (middle left), West 2 (middle right), West 1( far right)
If they get rid of inter-conference play, do you think they’d maintain the east-west divide or move to a structure more like MLB’s American and National League?
If it is like this, 3 games in the same conference, they will need a 2 year schedule so if you are, for example New Jersey and you play Buffalo, first year, 2 in Buffalo and 1 in New Jersey, it will have to reverse the next season, 2 in New Jersey and 1 in Buffalo so it is fair to all.
waiting for the barrie colts promotion to NHL and the related Minnesota Wild relegation to the o-show
if you are going to remove divisions the you could do a re-scuffling and have North, East, South, and West each would have 4 team but when expansion comes the team could go up
I like that 3x16 and 2x17 + playoffs being 1v8 seeding. I want to keep those east vs west matches going on in regular season for some mix in games, i didnt like the covid era of playing the same teams over and over again lol.
The growth of US hockey and the rise of European players makes it so 32 teams of 2024 > 21 teams of 1979.
You have to figure after Houston and Atlanta come Quebec and Arizona. So as far as the eastern conference goes...swap Columbus for Buffalo and Boston, this way Columbus and Quebec are lined up with the far left.
No cross conference games till the playoffs.
Then 1v8 but against that team from the other conference.
it would be so chaotic.
When they expand further i hope they just drop down to playing the opposite conference once a year... I want to preserve the regional rivalries as much as possible!
As an Oilers fan in the Atlantic time zone I'd hate to lose cross conference games
Do whatever you want with divisions just please change the seeding back to 1-8
Just expand to 100 games and we will have stanley cup final sometime in August.
I’ve always liked the idea of non-geographic conferences like the NFL and MLB. Gives you the possibility of a Pens/Flyers or a Kings/Ducks SCF
I think you can quickly get sick of watching the same teams play each other six times a season, especially when the schedule stacks them all within a few months. If it's a bad team it's bad (especially when your home team is the bad team) and if it's a strong rival it feels like you can save some stress for the playoffs and not overdo it.
I don't like the eliminating interconference play idea, that would mean Florida would never play Edmonton again unless they got to the Stanley Cup and I don't get to see Conor McDavid play. I still can't believe baseball did that until 1997
While I'm not from a hockey town originally, I did follow it growing up. Other than The Battle of Alberta between Edmonton and Calgary, I don't think I can name a major rivalry in the NHL unlike baseball (Yankees vs. Red Sox), basketball (Celtics vs Lakers), and football (there's not 1 rivalry superior to them all, but I'll say Packers-Bears)
there isnt enough talent to fill these teams, we see today, top players acculimate on certain team to play with each other, leaving other teams underwhelmed.
Why doesn't the NHL do away with geographical conferences and do something like MLB or the NFL and have something like a National Conference and American Conference or something to that effect? That way, they can have teams from both east and west in the same conference.
If they want to have every team play in their stadiums but can't expand the schedule too much because of the NHLPA, can't expand the playoffs unless the league changes its mind then realigning to 3 divisions per conference could be a compromise. Just having 4 games for divisional games, 3 for intraconference games and 2 for interconference games puts you in that low to mid 80 games range. That would also depend on how hard the PA would fight against a couple more games rather than the 13 you mentioned.
I would be fine with playing teams in the other conference once a year and alternate years which team is at home. That would free up 17 games a year to build out rivalries.
Do like baseball, split the league into two, if they add more teams. Less travel, more chance to even have more games with rivals, would be very interesting.
I like 2 conferences and 1-8 for playoffs. I personally would rather see more teams/players roll through town than a forced rivalry.
People against expansion wouldn't last 1 day outside Hockey. The whole argument against expanding, that it would make it "harder" for their team to win the Cup with more teams on the mix, falls apart as soon as you watch the NFL. Incompetent teams will always lose, regardless of how many teams are in the league. You could remove half the league's team and the Dolphins would never win the Lombardi Trophy again. The Panthers will never win a Super Bowl.
Well, they can always follow the NFL. The teams of the NFL have *never* had a season where they played everyone home-and-away. It’s been like that for over a century.
Only in smaller, rival leagues has they ever happened: the third American Football League of 1940-41, the All-America Football Conference of 1946-49, and the fourth AFL of 1960-65.
If not playing everybody in a season is good enough for the NFL, North America’s biggest sports league by far, why shouldn’t the NHL adopt practices that can increase revenue?
The only disadvantage I can think of in a East vs East and West vs West only schedule, is that because the NHL is so dependent on revenue made from ticket and merch sales, it might hurt the smaller markets. They only make $$$ if there are "butts in seats."
Imagine fans of teams in the West only seeing one original six team play in their barn all year. Not to mention all the ancient rivalries that exist across conference lines would be just gone. Fans in the East will forget that Vegas, Seattle, and Utah even have teams.
Just saying.
Also install a in season cup, I know it's soccerly but it's can be beneficial especially for Canadian teams
Miss the Wings rivalries in the West, do NOT miss the game times
You could also, in a 36-team league, play 30 teams twice (60 games), and 5 local teams four times (20 games), making the schedule 80 games, almost the same as today. In that case, you could both cultivate local rivalries and still play all the other teams every year. Playoffs could then be decided according to each team's position within the local division and/or the overall league standings. For example, the top 2 from each of the six divisions would advance to the playoff together with the four highest-ranking teams from the overall league standings. I think this would be a fun format.
U don't really need divisions just keep conferences keep geography structure.. you not losing rivalries when u prioritize conference play instead of thr whole league..
Lets go back to the playoff format perfected by the original 6 era. 1 vs 3 and 2 vs 4. And no goalie masks aloud.
My opinion would be to play every team twice, so that's 66 games. That leaves 16. Play 2 more games against each of your divisional opponents. So for Edmonton, 4 matchups against every Pacific team, and 2 against the rest of the league. That leaves 2 games left. Add another matchup vs Calgary and Vancouver. If every team has 2 extra slots to fill, add one more matchup against 2 rivals, even if they're in a different division. Eg. Chicago/Detroit. Unless my math is out, this seems like a good spread.
You could change the divisions
I think the problem comes down to.. the bigger the league gets the less you can play everyone twice/year,. Maybe look at conferences more like the NFL or MLB (they aren't separate leagues anymore).. where you have 2 eastern divisions. (1/conference) and you cross over to the other conference only 1 game/team/year and alternate home vs away every year. so every city sees every team... just not every year. I'm not a fan of that with an east vs west idea. Go back to Prince of Wales and Clarence Campbelll conferences and not have them be east vs west... literally break the 4 we have now into 8... where the Rangers and Isles are no longer same conference... But be very careful to balance... you don't want the 4 team in one division to be all playoff teams in this year... Yeah, it will split rivalrys.. but like you pointed out, not playing a team 8 times per year has already done that (yeah, I was a teen in the 80's. I remember those days quite fondly (though more fond of the late 70's))
Make a true, north , south, east and west . Fill it out wherever you need.
A new team in Atlanta is not going to play in the arena the Thrashers moved out from
If they expand more, I think it would go six divisions, 3 and 3.
However I don’t think that would be sustainable with only 16 making the playoffs
I prefer more intra divisions games then having to play all teams at least twice.
Owners don't care about getting every team to visit. They realize they have to play every team to get the teams they do want.
Please get rid of these horrid divisional playoffs and THG what about flyers leafs rivalry that has died what about red wings stars rivalry or red wings blues these divisions screwed everything up and playoff format is atrocious too
I wouldn't mind a play-in round for lower seeds, gives an advantage and a meaning to actually winning your division.
As someone who lives in calgary I'd say the battle of alberta is still an intense rivarly
Anybody who says dinosaur hockey was better - much less WAAAY better - than modern hockey just flat doesn't know what they are talking about. I was there. Hockey in the 70s, 80s, and into the 90s was sluggish. It was slow. The old joke "I went to a fight and a hockey game broke out" stems from the 30s, and persisted until the new millennium. Today's players are a lot faster, fit, and have far more agility than the HoF guys. The players aren't sloshed to the gills before, during, and after. (Well, maybe in Colorado... 😏...But I disgress.) Not that I don't have heroes in the HoF, but pound for pound I personally think a good present-day AHL team would beat an All Star team from the 70s. At least under current rules. Stupid rules like you can't beat your stick over the head of your opponent. You can't have five guys gang up and ram an opponent through the (real) glass. Ya gotta wear a helmet. Annoying little rules like that...I think bifurcating the league would lead to quality problems on one side or the other. All of the Big Four North American sports leagues have that problem already, even with interconference play. And MLB is NOT the model you want to follow. Single game play-ins I consider to be crooked as hell. Imagine wasting a 100 win season because of one game that an 85 game winner happens to win that day. The MLB, trying to manipulate ratings could send the order down to the already bad umpires to "adjust" the strike zones for one or both teams. Tilt the table a little bit. Maybe that happens, maybe it doesn't (I personally lean towards it does) but it gives Baseball a tool to either sharpshoot ratings, avenge some percieved slight by a given team (Moneyball), or just flat leave particular fan bases dejected...Hockey is clean as it goes, and even if it is just for the sake of avoiding a bad look, forget sudden death games. The in-season overtime set up is bad enough...
maybe time for another bettman phone call brother get us the scoop
Maybe im in the minority but id rather see every team then playing the same teams multiple times again and again
A possibility not being considered here is eliminating the Western/Eastern conferences instead - in short, taking the teams from the other division in your current conference and treating them as through they are in the opposite conference. That would free up enough games to do something like a 4/2 matrix where you play division rivals 4 times and everyone else twice. Would still hurt SOME rivalries, especially in the East, but you still get divisional ones and every team in every building still...
I'd love to see a setup like you play 2 games vs. each team, and then you play extra games with your neighbours in the standings after this regular-regular season part.
Keep schedule of games simple with teams nearby so there is a strong away fan culture.. Atlanta Hockey Hans will got to Nashville to watch thier team play
I think seattle is gonna be stuck being mid for a while
Fans are robbed by this expansion model and new clubs are placed ahead of existing teams ,let them start at the bottom
I actually really hate the whole division thing in all sports because it allows for crappy teams to go to the playoffs with bad records. Well good teams are forced out of the playoffs and then in the off-season. Try to wonder how they can better their team even though they actually had a decent record, it’s ridiculous. I want the best teams to go to the playoffs. I don’t mind a little underdog, but the last team or last two teams are underdogs enough Crappy teams into the playoffs is really annoying and I felt like for years as someone who’s 40 it has degraded the game a little bit
Need to go back to the old was and add a 3 2 1 pt system
32 teams, 2 conferences, 8 divisions.
15 divisional games (5/team)
24 conference (2/team)
32 inter-conference (2/team)
9 inter-divisional rivalry (3 bonus “series”)
1-2 neutral-site games
= 81 to 82 games
Reduce the latter 3 categories as needed with expansion (to 5-team divisions).
I'd like no conferences whatsoever + add a few rivalry games, so GMs don't have the excuse "well i don't want to trade within the conference, so i eliminated half the league as trading partners". But that probably would just compound the problem 😆.
yea yea sounds good i want that like it was before.