Resetti

Why does the thread title say that this is a poll?  

While putting the onus on the referee may work in basketball to minimize flopping, hockey is just too fast of a sport.  There's so much going on as it is that you can't add to that "judging acting skills" to the job requirement.  The way to legislate diving out of the sport is to have supplemental discipline in the form of heavy-handed suspensions against players diving.  It isn't worth diving to get one power play in a game if it means you sit the next 5 or so games.

It has to be heavy punishment in order to make it clear to players that it's not worth the gamble.  Give refs the power to call just dives, if there's an obvious one, but the league office has to take care of this in order to clean up the game.  The refs already have enough to worry about.

I don't think Shero would consider buying out Fleury because he probably still has some trade value even though it's diminished.  Although he's proven to be miserable in the playoffs recently, he is talented and has performed well in the regular season, and there are definitely teams outside the playoff picture who would be interested in upgrading with an experienced netminder.

As for backing up Howard, I don't think it would be worth it.  Even with Fleury's diminishing value on the market, and even if Pittsburgh bought out his contract, he would get at least $3 million from some team.

I don't think it's fair to compare Detroit vs Chicago when talking about playoff tests anyway.  Any rivalry matchup like that levels the playing field based purely on the hatred.  On paper Chicago should be killing Detroit, but the bad blood neutralizes any advantages Chicago would otherwise have.

As for the Penguins, the Islanders definitely challenged them with their speed.  New York was arguably the fastest team in the playoffs and that exposed the Penguins defense.  It's not as though they don't have some high-end talent.  As for Ottawa, they were the East's top-rated defense with a goalie that posted pretty incredible numbers this season.  It's a little weird to hold it against Pittsburgh instead of giving them any credit for making it a short series.

I understand the point that New York and Ottawa aren't particularly experienced teams, and that Boston has more veteran players than either of them, but it's hard not to have Pittsburgh as the favorite to come out of the East.  The Bruins are looking better than they did in their series against Toronto and compared to how they played the second half of the season in general but I'm still not sure about them; they have not seemed themselves since February or early March.

Last season they didn't have a capable backup so it wouldn't have made any difference.  But it seems that the Pittsburgh defense is much more calm with Vokoun in net than Fleury... they actually look decent.

Speed, an aggressive forecheck, and sustained puck possession exposes their defense though, as the Islanders showed.  Although the Senators aren't a particularly slow team so who knows?