toby91_ca

Montreal

That's the way it is currently working. Bettman is pretty much the lawyer/business guy. There are others who deal with Hockey operations. You have Bettman commenting and answering hockey operations type questions because he is the commissioner, but he is largely outside that process. He's not the guy making all the decisions that some woudl be lead to believe.

You don't think Pronger has a shot?

The NHL already tried this and decided they didn't like it and I agree. If the underdog manages to split their first 2 away games, they then have the next 3 games at home with a chance to close it out without ever having to go back to the top seed's building.

A neutral site works and makes sense for a game like football. It is a single game and it would probably be unfair for one of those teams to be playing on home field. For hockey and other sports (see baseball, basketball, etc.), it doesn't make sense and that's why it is not done. In a 7 games series, you are able to split the games so each team has home ice for different games, no unfair advantage to on of the teams. The team with the better regular season record gets an extra home game of course, but that's fair.

If you think logically about it though, last year's finals started the first weekend after the CF's ended, same as this year. Difference is that this year's CF's ended earlier in the week vs. last year. Also, didn't last year start on a Sunday vs. this year starting on a Saturday?

I think I'm missing something here, as I would love to hear the playback. From the post, this is what I gather the question as being: - last year the first 2 games of the finals were played on back to back nights, will the same happen this year? And this was Gary's answer: - Yes. If those are the correct facts, I would be absolutely shocked. Firstly, how would he know what the schedule is going to be before knowing what teams are there, other schedule conflicts, etc. Secondly, why would they plan it that way? The way I suspected it actually unfolded is that, yes, if the same circumstances arose (TV schedule conflicts, etc.), they'd do the same thing and he would go on to justify why it wasn't such a bad thing last year.

You obviously weren't watching any of the series. The trick to beating the Canadiens was discovered....let them out shoot you instead. Montreal out shot Philly in 4 of the 5 games. Montreal's win in game 3 was the first game in the post season (out of 6 I believe) that they've won while out shooting the opponent. In total, Montreal had 140 shots in the series vs. Philly's 125. Compare that to their series against Washington and Pittsburgh: VS. WASH (shots on goal) Mon - 194, Was - 292 VS. PITT (shots on goal) Mon - 173, Pit - 224 So, let's recap, in the series vs. Was and Pit, Mon gets out shot by 98 and 51 shots respectively and they go on to win both series. They out shoot Philly in all but one game and cumulatively by 15 shots and lose in 5 games.

Not sure how much this really impacts anything. I've seen a lot of franchise models, beyond sporting leagues...i.e. businesses like Little Casears for example. Every franchise model is different and it all depends on the arrangements and legal agreements. However, what I normally see is clauses that suggest a Franchisee (team owner for example) cannot simply sell their Franchise right to another individual without the Franchisor (league for example) approving such a sale. This makes total sense because in the real world (beyond sports) a Franchisor would first screen prospective Franchisees before awarding someone with a Franchise, so they aren't going to want a new Franchisee to come on board without them having the right to approve. From my perspective, it was very frustrating with the Basillie scenario, but I can totally understand why it works the way it does. There must be a lot more going on behind the scenes that I don't know about because keeping a guy like Basillie out is strange to me. I understand it's been wrong the way he's tried to get in, etc., etc., I get it, but the NHL has gone at lengths to keep him out, which I don't get. I think the biggest reason is them trying to protect their existing Franchises and avoid teams moving. If you are a resident of a such a city where you could lose your team, I guess I can see that I being a really good thing, you don't want your team uprooted, but there comes a time where enough is enough.

Montreal and Philly both played in 7 game series. Chicago and San Jose finished their respective series quicker....who should get more days off? I don't see the problem. I was a little upset with the fact that had both series now being played on the same night, but I believe it is now staggered.

Perhaps a preview to the Lindsay award? While not the exact group voting, probably the closest thing you'll get. The only difference is that this award was the result of voting from players, coaches and execs, not just players. Voting was fairly close though, so you never know. http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=322146

Huh? Ticket sales are where the NHL's real money is right now, but if you want to make the real dollars, it's in TV revenues, which the NHL currently lacks and would love to obtain.

I imagine you'll be in the vast majority of the general population of NHL fans. Either way, ratings, I would guess, would be greater for this than most other matchups you can think of.

Complain about contact with the goalie (even though Vockun flopped) - I probably would have called it. But a slash and a slew foot? Firstly, there is absolutely no evidence of a slew foot...zero. Suggesting a slew foot makes me think some don't know what a slew foot is. Secondly, he slashes at the stick which is playing the puck. This happens about 500-1,000 times a game and usually gets called if you break a guys stick, but other than that, never gets called.

I can understand the issue most people have with the constant promotion of Crosby and Ovechkin, but I think people need to step back and appreciate just how good these players are. As of right now (I know numbers could decline, but both are still years away from their primes): Career points per game leaders in NHL history: Gretzky - 1.921 Lemieux - 1.883 Bossy - 1.497 Orr - 1.393 Crosby - 1.364 Ovechkin - 1.336 Dionne - 1.314 Pretty impressive group to be included within. Again, over the long haul, their stats may begin to lag, but it is also important to point out that all the others on this list played in a much higher scorer era than today's NHL. While they have tried to increase scoring, scoring is still low and goalies are lightyears ahead of where they used to be. People need to understand that these players are special and if the NHL doesn't market them as such, they are missing out. To NHL fans of other teams, it gets annoying, but I do think these guys draw in new fans.

I agree, the examples as described just shows total salaries increasing across the board. So, more money to players, but no more revenues to the league. Not sure how the owners would feel about that.

I don't know about that, but I can see an argument. Ovechkin is 2 years older right? He's the better play right now, but you never know how much more each will develop and the extra $3 million a year is a lot.

Don't know about looking up the stats, but here is an article on the topic, written around the end of the regular season. Edmonton, by far, were the worst off. http://www.thehockeynews.com/articles/32720-THNcom-Top-10-Games-lost-to-injury.html

I think the big problem with that type of system is that you might still see stronger teams remaining stronger and while some of the small market teams may get financial support through revenue sharing, they may still struggle to compete on the ice with the bigger spenders, which will keep them from growing their business and developing a healthy revenue stream from within. I think the league wants all of its franchisees to be healthy and artificial financial suppport through a luxury tax system may not be the answer. I can see the logic whereby limiting what you can spend helps keep other teams competitive and therefore a better chance at financial success.

I think part of the thinking is that, because he's still young, signing to a 10 year contract is less of a risk than signing someone like Zetterberg or Franzen to lengthy contracts. HOWEVER: I think there are two ways to look at it: 1 - Sure, with Backstrom, he is young and will be in his prime throughout the contract, likely less prone to injury and less prone to decline due to age....both of which you probably risk with guys like Zetterberg and Franzen. 2 - With Backstrom though, because he is young, you are likely stuck with that cap hit for the next 10 years for sure and depending on where the cap goes, it could get troublesome (good look very good too). With Zetterberg and Franzen, they may retire before the end of their contracts, therefore, Detroit may not be on the hook for those cap hits for as long.

You know, someone can look at that and honestly say, I'm not sure which team is better. Both appear to be evenly matched against their opponents every night, Detroit happened to win them all, but it took OT to get there and Chicago happened to win some and lose some. I think what those records might show is that Detroit is the more consistent team, no one coudl be them, but they weren't strong enough to win without going to OT (they scrapped by every game). Chicago would appear to be more inconsistent, some nights they are really strong and others not so much. Perhaps under that scenario, finishing with similar point totals makes some sense? What probably doesn't make sense is a team that goes 82-0 (winning every game in OT) finishing with 82pts and a team that loses every game has zero points. Is one team really that much better than the other?

The records are consistent, it just doesn't look that way because of OT and SO wins/losses. Both records include 270 games. if you look at the total losses of each conference (L + OTL or SOL), that equals the wins of the other conference. I think the "proof" the OP's is suggesting show parity is not working is quite the opposite, I think it goes to prove that parity is working. You also see different teams succeeded year after year, which is part of the goal. I think the OP's real beef is that the EC is weaker than the WC and if you seeded 1-16 instead of the top 8 in each conference, there would be teams in the EC that wouldn't make it. I don't think you can really do something like that without wildly adjusting the schedule and doing something like that would essentially remove the need to actually have separate conferences. There's real no need to have separate divisions at this point either, other than the fact that division winners are seated 1-3. While it may seem easy to point to records and show that the West is the superior conference, I don't think it's that cut and dry. I think the West is stronger, but you really can't say for sure if the teams are no playing a balanced schedule. Most say that the Western teams have to deal with a lot more travel, which is fair, but who's to say that if the Eastern teams travelled more, they would get more used to it, therefore limiting the impact they'd face when they do make the trip, vs. today's scheudle, which only includes rare trips. Always 2 ways of looking at it.

If your definition of "close" is "less than 50% difference", then okay, but I would consider 0.93ppg to not only to be "not close" to 1.36, but I'd suggest is is "signifcantly different". This is the difference between a 76pt season and a 112pt season, how are those two numbers "close"? I don't get it.

Did you just say that Getzlaf has close to the same PPG as Crosby? Crosby's career PPG is 1.36, Getzlaf's is 0.93. Getzlaf's BEST season was 1.12, Crosby WORST season was 1.26.

I think this says more about the fans in Montreal than anything else.