Adding two intradivisional matches while increasing the NHL schedule to 84 games next season is tantamount to putting a Band-Aid on a gunshot wound.
Such a move, which we’re told has a fair amount of momentum within the Board of Governors, would represent an increase from 32 percent of the schedule being played within the division to 33 percent.
That is a difference without a distinction.
In fact, altering the schedule to ensure four matchups between division rivals (instead of four against five opponents and three against the other two) would only serve to codify the NHL’s infuriating setup that deprives paying customers of entertainment value.
The idea is to maximize meaningful confrontations over the year and to enhance rivalries in a league in which skill is spiking, but intensity often flatlines. It is to spotlight showdowns down the stretch in playoff races. The current matrix does exactly the opposite.
Do you understand that under the current system, it does not matter whether the winning team goes to overtime in 39 percent of games played out of conference while it has great bearing on the standings in 61 percent of games within the conference?
What kind of loopy system is that?
The remedy is clear. It is time for the NHL and NHLPA to abandon their insistence that every team visit every venue at least once a year.
Every other year would do just fine under a matrix in which clubs would play six games apiece against clubs in their division, three games apiece against clubs in the other division within the conference, and either a home-and-home against clubs in one division. of the other conference or a home-and-home against half the clubs in each division of the other conference on an annual rotating basis.
That would compute to 51 percent of the schedule within the division, 80 percent within the conference and only 20 percent of games with diluted meaning. It would restore competitive integrity to the schedule.
Snapshot. Elite Eight: 1. Boston; 2. Carolina; 3. Toronto; 4. Pittsburgh; 5. Dallas; 6. Vegas; 7. Rangers; 8. Tampa Bay.
By the way, anyone hear any apologies to Lindy Ruff lately?
So Matthew Tkachuk had 100 minutes of hockey spread over two games and four nights to challenge Nico Hischier straight up if he truly believed the Devils captain had gone down and dirty on a crosscheck chop to Aleksander Barkov’s knee on a face-off at 19:57 of the first period of the match in Newark on Dec. 17 that injured the Florida center.
But no. Of course not. While a number of his teammates took multiple cheap shots against Hischier throughout the remainder of that game, Tkachuk waited until Tomas Tatar scored an empty-netter with 39.1 seconds to go in the rematch at Sunrise on Dec. 21 to pull his weasel act and jump Hischier from behind in a scrum.
Page Six believes that would have made Sean Avery proud.
Caught the thrilling end of regulation between Vancouver and Seattle on Thursday in which Elias Pettersson tied it with 1:20 to go for his fifth point of the night and then was just about to be put to sleep by the overtime period, in which the Kraken consistently regathered. and brought the puck out of the offensive zone in order to get possession changes.
I get the strategy to a point, but it perverts the entertainment value of overtime, which features three-on-three only because of its entertainment value. I’ve seen more than a few of these this season in which the shootout is far more compelling than overtime.
PS: That match in Vancouver was one of them, with Pettersson himself getting the shootout clincher.
So far a lower percentage of overtime games have been required to be settled by a shootout (29.7 as opposed to 35.4 last year), so maybe the wet blankets behind the bench have not succeeded in ruining it entirely, but if possession hockey becomes OT. the norm, the NHL just might have to legislate against it.
You hear John Tortorella saying: “You [writers] are trying to pit him against me and me against him, which is so ludicrous. So I’m not giving you any update on Kevin Hayes.”
I hear John Tortorella nine-plus years earlier saying: “Don’t interfere with my friendship with Gabby [Marian Gaborik]. We have a great relationship.”
In discussing the potential haul the Blackhawks might demand in return for leasing Patrick Kane: Is this the time at which someone is allowed to point out that No. 88’s 0.37 five-on-five goals per 60:00 rank 76th of the 79 forwards with 450 minutes (per NaturalStatTrick)?
And who am I to indicate that the common denominator between the wildly surprising Jets and the terribly disappointing Puddy Tats seems to be … Paul Maurice?
Maybe it’s just me, but why whenever I see a photo of a mustachioed Auston Matthews do I see Cast Iron Mike Keenan?
This just in: Gary Bettman says a poll he commissioned this week reveals that season ticket holders prefer paying to watch as many meaningless games as possible.
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