2016 NHL Playoffs, Rite of Spring: "You thought God was an architect"

[Unocal]

At this point, Blues/Blackhawks is basically Spurs/Clippers from last year.

 

A matchup this good should be in round 2.

 

I mean, for pete's sake, the #6 seed will get home ice in TB/NYI even thought the Isles had more points.

 

The NHL needs to rectify its playoff format- just outright seed teams by point totals regardless of division.

 

The NBA finally got things right this year.

 

If STL wins, the conference's 1-2 seeds will be in round 2 in the West AND East.

 

This format basically rewards the 4-5-6 seeds it feels like.

[Still MIGHTY]

Who the hell cares? And what the hell are you talking about?

 

Just to humor you (and for the life of me, I don't know why) and look at your specific issues in our third year of the current format.

 

2014 Stanley Cup Playoffs

• EAST: #1 Boston and #2 Pittsburgh won their divisions, so on opposite sides of the bracket. #4 Montreal swept #3 Tampa Bay, beat #1 Boston in 7. #5 Rangers beat #6 Flyers in 7, beat #2 Penguins in 7, beat #4 Montreal in 7. What advantage? #4 played up to #3 and #1. Sure #5 Rangers played one spot down to beat #6 then played #2. I see no problem.
• WEST: #1 Anaheim and #2 Colorado won their divisions, so on opposite sides of the bracket. #4 San Jose lost to #6 Los Angeles in 7. #5 Chicago beat #3 St. Louis in 6. #6 Los Angeles beat #4 SJ in 7, beat #1 Anaheim in 7, beat #5 Chicago in 7, won Cup. #2 Colorado lost in first round. What advantage? Low seeds all beat high seeds.

2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs

• EAST: #1 Rangers and #2 Montreal won their divisions, so on opposite sides of bracket. #4 Washington beat #5 Islanders in 7, lost to #1 Rangers in 7. #6 Detroit lost to #3 Tampa in 7. #3 beat #2, #3 beat #1. What advantage? These actually played out as if they were seeded 1-8. Nothing gained here.
• WEST: #1 Anaheim and #2 St. Louis won their divisions, so on opposite side of bracket. #4 Chicago beat #3 Nashville in 6, swept #6 Minnesota, beat #1 Anaheim in 7, won Cup. #5 Vancouver lost to #8 Calgary in 6. #6 Minnesota beat #2 St. Louis in 6. What advantage? All lower seeds beat high seeds early, except #1 Anaheim who still lost to #4. #5 Canucks got the biggest "advantage, and lost!

2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs

• EAST: #1 Washington and #2 Pittsburgh in same division, same bracket. #4 Rangers lost to #2 Penguins in 5. #5 Islanders beat #3 Panthers in 6. #6 Tampa Bay beats #8 Detroit in 5. #1 Capitals vs #2 Penguins. #6 Tampa Bay hosts #5 Islanders. This is the first time this has happened, yes. But did #4 NYR get an advantage? Nope. Did #5 NYI get an advantage? Nope. Only #6 Tampa had any advantage here. But yes, you do get #1 vs #2 for the first time.
• WEST: #1 Dallas and #2 St. Louis in the same division, same bracket. #4 Anaheim leads #7 Nashville, 3-2. #5 Los Angeles lost to #6 San Jose in 5. Fine, here's one more point to your argument. 1/2/3 in the same division, so the other division gets some help. But again, firsts.

 

TL;DR: Of the first three years in the new system, this season is the first to actually show the problems you pointed out, @SabresRule7361. In the first two years, 1-2 were split and 4-5-6 were never presented any huge advantages, they just won and beat higher seeds in the process like normal. It doesn't reward or benefit any certain seeds because those seeds could fall in a manner of ways each season. But so far, 2/3 times, it's been fine.

 

But complain. It's your right. Even if things were good, you'd find something new up your ass. So live on.

[CyGuy5]

Well my Wild are out, but I give them credit, they never quit. Too bad they couldn't pull it out in the end. This will be an interesting offseason for sure

[Coast2CoastAM2006]

This was my reaction last night when I saw the Islander win:

 

[Sport]

That's a brutal way to lose if you're Florida and such a Luongo way to give up those two goals. If I was a Panthers fan this series would be really hard to stomach. They could've easily won this series. And RIP to one of the most underrated logos in sports. I'm sorry you were attached to so many terrible teams. 

 

Also, there should've been two tripping calls on the Islanders when the net was empty. I know it's a tough time to call that, but there are rules that you can't discard just because it's crunch time. 

[speedy]

13 hours ago, SabresRule7361 said:

Tavares can thank the refs for TWO non-tripping no-calls when the net was empty.

 

Coach's challenges, a rare OT power play, and those no trip calls-  I hope they go another 20 years before winning in the playoffs.

 

 

 

Meanwhile Florida got a gift 4 minute high sticking followed by a gift hooking call to make it 5 on 3. Where's the beef there? It's not New Brooklyn's fault that Luongo Luongo'd and Jagr's playoff prowess is reaching young Joe Thornton levels of ineptitude. 

[Brass]

1 minute ago, speedy said:

 

Meanwhile Florida got a gift 4 minute high sticking followed by a gift hooking call to make it 5 on 3. Where's the beef there? It's not New Brooklyn's fault that Luongo Luongo'd and Jagr's playoff prowess is reaching young Joe Thornton levels of ineptitude. 

 

Oh, great memories of that one.

[The_Admiral]

Ah, Joe Thornton. One of my favorite things is how Very Smart Hockey Writers like Lambert and his wannabes all take this tack of "everyone on Twitter says Joe Thornton sucks! Well, I'm here to tell you that actually he doesn't!" Yeah, duh, of course he doesn't suck, it's just fun to make fun of him for all the years he and his team go to crap. I don't think he's the best playmaker of all time, that's for sure, and I have a little trepidation about his Hall of Fame placement. Also, the fact that his career years coincide with what turned out to be an aberration in scoring dings him, and though it's not as if you can attach an actual <1 multiplier to it, the fact that he blossomed on a country club team should count against him.

[FiddySicks]

Has there ever been a pair of "star" players, like, in any sport, who have had as many years together and have done less than Thornton and Marleau when it comes to playoff success? This was brought up the other day, and I kinda struggled to find anyone else on their level. 

[HedleyLamarr]

15 hours ago, the admiral said:

 

 

AFLAC!!!!!

[T-ROY]

14 hours ago, rams80 said:

 

And of course, Winnipeggers know ALL about playoff hockey.

 

Yup you're right I know I know nothing about playoff hockey solely due to where I live /s

 

Just remind yourself to never talk about NFL playoffs rams

[The_Admiral]

Like Justin Trudeau said, it's 2016. Why are we still responding to SabresRule and TRoy with anything other than videos of people farting?

[rams80]

19 minutes ago, TRoyConcepts said:

 

Yup you're right I know I know nothing about playoff hockey solely due to where I live /s

 

Just remind yourself to never talk about NFL playoffs rams

 

Yeah, um, I'm old enough to have witnessed all of the GSOT in person.  So shoo, and reflect on how you cheer for one of the 2 "Big 4" professional sports franchises in this country that have yet to win a playoff game in their history (The Browns 2.0 are the other one and at least they have the "excuse" of the NFL playoffs being a one-and-done thing)

[T-ROY]

1 hour ago, rams80 said:

 

Yeah, um, I'm old enough to have witnessed all of the GSOT in person.  So shoo, and reflect on how you cheer for one of the 2 "Big 4" professional sports franchises in this country that have yet to win a playoff game in their history (The Browns 2.0 are the other one and at least they have the "excuse" of the NFL playoffs being a one-and-done thing)

 

-____- I'm not a Jets fan. 

[HedleyLamarr]

2 hours ago, rams80 said:

 

Yeah, um, I'm old enough to have witnessed all of the GSOT in person.  So shoo, and reflect on how you cheer for one of the 2 "Big 4" professional sports franchises in this country that have yet to win a playoff game in their history (The Browns 2.0 are the other one and at least they have the "excuse" of the NFL playoffs being a one-and-done thing)

Is this the part where I remind Rams80 that Winnipeg's not in the US?

[RedRenesis]

18 hours ago, Still MIGHTY said:

Only you could find something to hate about this.

 

As a Pens fan, the upside is that hopefully I never have to hear David effing Volek's name again.  

[Unocal]

If you're Dallas, who would you rather face?

 

Blackhawks

Pros- Dallas played them better this year, could be worn out from this epic seven-game war

Cons- Postseason savvy, ability to turn it on when it counts

 

 

Blues

Pros- Lack of playoff savvy, could be worn out from potentially winning this

Cons- Have had Dallas' number recently, play a grinding style that could bother the Stars the way Minnesota did

[DDR]

I can't imagine anybody would prefer to play the Blackhawks over the Blues. And that's no offense to the Blues. 

[HedleyLamarr]

9 minutes ago, DDR said:

I can't imagine anybody would prefer to play the Blackhawks over the Blues. And that's no offense to the Blues. 

I would rather play the Blackhawks.

 

Sure, they've got the playoff magic, their core knows how to win, and they're the most dangerous team in the West.  But at some point, all these deep playoff runs with the same core players will eventually catch up to them.  Plus, Dallas has Sharp and Oduya, which could help them tremendously in the gameplanning as far as pointing out tendencies and such.

 

With St. Louis, I think once they ever get over that Chicago hump, they'll play looser and with more confidence.  They'll no longer have that stigma of "You can't win in the playoffs".  When Vancouver finally took out the Blackhawks in that 7th game (instead of finishing them off in 4-5...probably the weakest Chicago team since their run started), they breezed through the next two rounds.

[Still MIGHTY]

Let's GO Ducks. End this. NOW.

 

I do not want to have to sit in that building on Wednesday. I don't want to have to be there.