Detroit Red Wings & the NHL

[Optimus Prime]

Seriously, Wings and Pens are out and the Hawks and Bruins are on the brink. All four Stanley Cup champions from the recent past. Second round consists of Florida, Ottawa, St. Louis, Nashville and Phoenix. Enjoy your parity Bettman!

At the end of the day Packy, it's a business and cost certainty is a must. An equitable salary cap of sorts tied to League revenues is a good thing in this regard, provided the numbers are truthful. The artificial parity perception is in large part respsonible and needs to be addressed, Danny Tackuzk's recent comments are spot-on.

Changing the perception of a .500 record

Down the stretch of the regular season, NHL teams continue to push and analyze their chances of getting into the playoffs. There is a lot of scoreboard watching and “what-if” scenerios to ponder. Hopefully in the end, the better teams will move on.

During the lockout, the NHL’s decision makers added the shootout and changed the points system. They felt this would add value to fan entertainment, while creating the desired parity within the league to go along with the newly-introduced salary cap system.

Personally, I am not a fan of this setup.

For one, it means regular season games differ in value. Some are worth two points, while others are worth three. That means a team that dominates a game and wins 4-0 gets the same reward as a team that wins in a shootout or overtime.

More importantly, the team that dominated in its victory only gains one point in the standings over the team that lost in extra time.

So what does that mean?

• Over the past three seasons the average number of points awarded to each team has been:

2010-11 = 91.9 points
2009-10 = 92 points
2008-09 = 91.4 points

This means the three-year average is 91.77 (92), roughly 10 points more than standard .500 mark.

• The average “win percentage” has increased to .560 from the original .500 (or 82 points during the regular season). However, this isn’t winning percentage at all, but points percentage and there is a tendency to confuse the two. Fans and analysts need to shift their notions of “500” when looking at records.

SUMMARY
GMs and coaches should start to avoid the cliches of “we were .500 because we got seven of a possible 14 points” and hide behind this falsehood to cover their teams’ lackluster play.

I would love to see the NHL adopt the three-point system spelled out below so that every game is worth the same in the standings:

• Regulation win: three points
• OT/SO win: two points
• OT/SO loss: one point
• Regulation loss: zero points

This point system would reward teams for their strong play and create greater distance in the standings between them and the weaker clubs, resulting in a more accurate reflection of where teams lie (though eliminating the perception of league-wide parity).

The three-point system would also give teams more control over their own fate down the stretch and perhaps create more sellers at the NHL trade deadline.

Daniel Tkaczuk was Calgary's first round pick in 1997 (sixth overall) and has been playing professionally in North America and Europe for the past 12 seasons. He is currently president of iHockeyTrainer.com, an online hockey school for skill development.

[Optimus Prime]

All four losses? They got outplayed and had terrible goaltending.

Even as the Pens collapsed in games 2 & 3, the series at this very moment should be knotted at 3 and heading towards a sudden death, winner take-all- match game 7 in Pittsburgh, but mercifully it's over for Pittsburgh, interesting to see what Lemieux does in terms of an overhaul.


The League's real Money Men, post-battle.

[madootra]

Ummmm.....Giroux maybe, but Cindy was -3 today. When will he step up and lead his team?

[entropy]

Lmao

[Mike]

I'm a huge proponent of the 3-2-1 scoring system like the CCHA uses. There's no reason for 6 or 7 teams to be seperated by a few points. The current system doesn't accurately reward the best teams. When you dissect the Wings' season, I think they only had 39 ROW wins for 78 points but had another 12 SO wins to give them 102 on the season. Traditionally, they'd be about a 90 point team.

[Optimus Prime]

Hopefully it is addressed the next CBA round, let me ask if Stuart and Lidstrom pack it in, the CAP cash needs to be spent defensively, however if they stay, a power forward, Zack Parise, Shane Doan type player, Nash or Weber will be too expensive in terms of cash and players in trade, IMO.

Wings need a forward who can win a defensive zone faceoff IMO, a punishing defensive defenseman, and a strong North American leader. A Dustin Brown/Shane Doan type player would be a perfect fit up front. A Brooks Orpik, Hal Gill type on the blue line. They have $$ to spend, time to make some decisions to become a more well rounded hockey club.

Nashville go a serious return on David Legwand - Fitting the franchise’s all-time leader in every major offensive category scored the clincher in the team’s biggest win yet. Not only did he beat Jimmy Howard 13 seconds into the third, he won 75 percent of his faceoffs. Acquiring Suter may be the wisest cash spent.

Any thoughts?

[Tom W]

All are good thoughts, OP.The Wings aren't in as dire of a predicament as it seemed at times in this series. A good physical defenseman would certainly help. Plus, they've got depth issues which forced them to play guys who weren't 100% in critical positions.

Credit Nashville for playing a solid series- they've been tracking the Wings for years and put forth a solid effort in this series.

[WingsFan]

Sadly, I have come to the conclusion today's Gary Bettmans NHL is nothing but a crap shoot, just get in the playoffs be healthy and most important ... be lucky. The President Cup winner Vancouver was knocked out of the playoffs in 5 games. High powered Pittsburgh could not get out of the first round, the Current Cup defenders Boston will play a game 7 to see if they can get pass the first round. Top seeded NY Rangers in the east are going to a game 7 also. Other than the Flyers-Pens series, no winning team has scored more than 4 goals in a game.

Oh yeah... The Detroit Red Wings who looked like a Cup favorite a few weeks ago was also knocked out in the first round 5 games.

[WingsFan]

Last note and im out OP, the Chicago /Phoenix series , every game went into OT. The Boston/Washington series every game has been won by one goal. Parity at its worst.

[WM Wolverine]

Hockey is a sport that needs to treat the regular season as something special, like MLB does and invite only the elite regular season teams to the postseason; 8 teams would be good....

Unfortunately, the first round of the playoffs makes way too much money to ever consider such an idea.

[Optimus Prime]

Last note and im out OP, the Chicago /Phoenix series , every game went into OT. The Boston/Washington series every game has been won by one goal. Parity at its worst.

We've had a 16 team playoff format for it seems nearly forever, I don't have a problem with it. Just get in, get healthy, get on a roll, first team to figure out how win 16 games over 4 rounds.

PackFan:
Sure there were many first-round upsets, damn hot goaltenders stealing more than a few series. Mike Smith, Jonathan Quick, Pekka Rinne, Craig Anderson, Brian Elliott & ROOKIE Braden Holtby, these are your culprits Packy. Besides the Playoffs are an entirely new season as you often remind.

[Hannibal]

The "new NHL" is gone. Take away the Pittsburgh-Philly series, and we're right back to 2004. The officiating is awful. Offense is nonexistent.

A big catalyst is probably the salary cap.

I probably won't watch any more hockey this year other than whatever series Philly is in.

[DennisT]

No problem with parity here. I like it actually. My problem is with hockey franchises in the banana belt. They belong in Canada and the northern tier. Also have a problem with the length of the season. Am kind of pulling for the Yotes now so the Cup can be captured in mid June in Phoenix in basically a water pond due to 115 degree weather just to highlight the sheer idiocy of it.

[Optimus Prime]

The "new NHL" is gone. Take away the Pittsburgh-Philly series, and we're right back to 2004. The officiating is awful. Offense is nonexistent.

A big catalyst is probably the salary cap.

I probably won't watch any more hockey this year other than whatever series Philly is in.

The Pittsburgh/Philadelphia series was entertaining, in-state rivalry, sub-par to horrific goaltending and complete and total defensive collapses not because they drew lucky officials that let them play.

Typically the teams tighten defensively for the playoffs so there is no surprise here either. The officiating has been inconsistent but that is always a criticism every year anyway. I agree Obstruction must be called in the neutral-zone, teams are clogging the limited space effectively, slowing down the speedsters and skill guys, shame....then patiently waiting for the counterattack but still it ain't no soccer!

With many heavy Cup favorites getting bounced early, it's damn good year to be a UFA...the Nash & Weber sweepstakes just went up bigtime. Whichever teams land them, will both overpay considerably.

[Hannibal]

The previous years since the lockout weren't like this at all. The year the Wings won the Cup and the two years that followed had some of the most exciting playoff series of our lifetime. This year has been a disaster, outside of Pittsburgh-Philly. The Western semifinals this year are St. Louis vs. LA (awful) and Phoenix vs Nashville (beyond awful). The East is shaping up a tad better.

Here are the leading scorers for those four teams:

St. Louis -- David Backes with 54 points
Phoenix -- Ray Whitney with 77 points
Nashville -- Marty Erat with 58 points
LA -- Anze Kopitar with 76 points

That's two teams without a guy who even reached scored 60 points. Pathetic.

In the NFL, the quarterbacks don't suddenly start completing 40% of their passes in the playoffs. In baseball, .300 hitters don't suddenly hit .100. The NHL is the only sport where this happens. It will always languish light years behind the other major sports in popularity and cultural appeal until this changes.