News From Around the League - Part XXXVIII

[Feed Me A Stray Cat]

Just a note to myself: John Mitchell has been surprisingly good for the Avalanche so far.

23% shooting percentage has something to do with that.

If he shoots at his previous career rate of 8-9%, he has 2 goals instead of 6.

The real sign of offensive improvement is an increase in shot totals, which Mitchell has not shown.

 

[Getzo5]

23% shooting percentage has something to do with that.

If he shoots at his previous career rate of 8-9%, he has 2 goals instead of 6.

The real sign of offensive improvement is an increase in shot totals, which Mitchell has not shown.

I wasn`t looking into it, just stating the fact. His overall game improved though, lucky or not.

 

[Brooklyndevil]

He'll somehow find a taker for him. Despite his terrible signings, he can always seemingly find a way to dump his garbage on another team.

He sure does get lucky. Last time there was a lockout, he get's to buy out Holik, with Gomez the good Lord hands him Bob Gainey and now with Richards and the prior lockout, he gets another freebee and we have to give up a 2013 or 2014 1st round pick. He sure does have arse on his side when it comes to the cap and bad contracts.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Per a retweet from TG, Malkin suffered a concussion yesterday, was suffering short-term memory loss, but supposedly no other symptoms and his memory was returning. That was posted yesterday. Sounds pretty nasty to me.

Edit: http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=657379&navid=nhl:topheads Malkin on IR, they say he is ok, but memory loss IDK.

 

[Feed Me A Stray Cat]

I wasn`t looking into it, just stating the fact. His overall game improved though, lucky or not.

I'm highly doubtful. His possession stats were just as good last year. But regardless, he was always decent defensively and with possession.

When players score goals it's much easier to take a flowery view on the entirety of their game.

 

[hlaverty06]

What the **** Lou resign someone!! Its the new thing

 

[Emperoreddy]

http://deadspin.com/5986770/the-nhl-appears-ready-for-radical-four+conference-realignment

Proposed realignment with a fun diagram. Man the Preds get shafted. Discussion of a possible play in playoff like MLB has on wild card weekend to fix to inbalence between the west and east.

 

[Classic Devil]

http://deadspin.com/5986770/the-nhl-appears-ready-for-radical-four+conference-realignment

Proposed realignment with a fun diagram. Man the Preds get shafted. Discussion of a possible play in playoff like MLB has on wild card weekend to fix to inbalence between the west and east.

Broken down cleanly along time zones, no conference straddles more than two. They apparently made the decision that time zone coherence was more important than Western rivalries.

 

[manilaNJ]

I'm really not a fan of divisional playoffs. At all.
Wish there was a way for them to get this realignment done without this 4 conferences nonsense.

Personal gripe, though.

 

[NJDevs26]

I'm really not a fan of divisional playoffs. At all.
Wish there was a way for them to get this realignment done without this 4 conferences nonsense.

Personal gripe, though.

It ain't just you. I don't understand why they can't just lump the eight teams from the two East conferences into one bracket, and the eight teams from the West conferences into another.

Forcing early-round division matchups every year both dilutes those over time with enough series, and ensures you'll never have Devils-Rangers as a Conference Final again. Or Wings-Hawks, Habs-Bruins, etc.

 

[apice3*]

Having division teams beat each other up in the first two rounds is not a good idea.

 

[Chessarmy]

I don't like the 4 conference idea. Swap Winnipeg with a western conference team and be done with it

 

[manilaNJ]

It ain't just you. I don't understand why they can't just lump the eight teams from the two East conferences into one bracket, and the eight teams from the West conferences into another.

Forcing early-round division matchups every year both dilutes those over time with enough series, and ensures you'll never have Devils-Rangers as a Conference Final again. Or Wings-Hawks, Habs-Bruins, etc.

People romanticize the past way too much. I was both very young and very unborn in those days - but from the majority of those that were NHL fans in that time, I've been told it was redundant and unwatchable til the conference finals.

 

[Capt Nico Poo]

Having division teams beat each other up in the first two rounds is not a good idea.

interdivision round 1 would suck. Just think about 2 top teams having to go head to head in round 1 and 2 7-8th seedish going head to head aswell, resulting in totally ****ing up the point of doing well in the regular season, amirite

 

[Emperoreddy]

http://www.cbc.ca/sports/hockey/opinion/2013/02/30-thoughts-nhl-realignment-still-needs-work.html

Some more from CBC. Brings up a good question on how does the league handle this if Phoenix moves to Quebec.

Florida teams kind of screwed with the travel in their conference since everyone but them are in or near Canada.

I really don't know if I like the idea of this play in game at all, though its better then that idea of having a cross over playoff. If a 5 seed in the bigger conference has more points then a 4 in a smaller one they cross over for the playoffs.

Just switch Winnipeg and Nashville, no need to get this complicated and mess with what is a currently a successful playoff format.

 

[Bleedred]

I don't like the 4 conference idea. Swap Winnipeg with a western conference team and be done with it

Winnipeg and Detroit swap. Though we'd still have to mash up the divisions a little bit. Detroit can't play in the southeast. It's almost as absurd as what's going on now with Winnipeg.

Nashville for Winnipeg straight up would be good, but Nashville probably won't do it. Nashville could move right into the southeast with no problems. Winnipeg should probably be with Minnesota in the northwest since Winnipeg is due north of there. Though Winnipeg in the central with the Blackhawks, Blues, Wings, and Jackets isn't as absurd as Winnipeg in the southeast division.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Winnipeg and Detroit swap. Though we'd still have to mash up the divisions a little bit. Detroit can't play in the southeast. It's almost as absurd as what's going on now with Winnipeg.

Nashville for Winnipeg straight up would be good, but Nashville probably won't do it. Nashville could move right into the southeast with no problems. Winnipeg should probably be with Minnesota in the northwest since Winnipeg is due north of there. Though Winnipeg in the central with the Blackhawks, Blues, Wings, and Jackets isn't as absurd as Winnipeg in the southeast division.

I thought I read Nashville does want to come East, and are kind of annoyed Columbus and Detroit will be making the move East instead.

 

[davebenj]

Personally, I think before the 04 lockout a few teams had much more of a gripe about travel than nowadays.
Also, if you look back at some of the older schedules, for example the 2002-03 Flyers had an insanely easy travel schedule with only like two west swings (one of them to start the season) while they made other Eastern teams make separate trips to San Jose and Anaheim or Vancouver and Edmonton etc and made them do like 3 or 4 separate west trips and vise versa (west to east teams) Obviously, some of it depended on which teams will visit who.

 

[Bleedred]

I thought I read Nashville does want to come East, and are kind of annoyed Columbus and Detroit will be making the move East instead.

Yup that's why it won't work.

If Detroit moves though we still need to rip some divisions apart. A Nashville/Winnipeg swap straight up would be the most logical as they could ease right into each others former divisions.

Winnipeg will be a little out of the way of the central division teams, but right now they're way out of the way of their division.

 

[manilaNJ]

Columbus to the South East
Winnipeg to the North West
Vancouver to the Pacific
Dallas to Central

Think that all evens out.

Atlantic: Same
North East: Same
South East: Carolina, Columbus, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington

Central: Chicago, Dallas, Detroit, Nashville, St. Louis
North West: Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Minnesota, Winnipeg
Pacific: Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver

Detroit can deal with it.
-And the North West still has time zone issues, but the West can't be assembled without some time zone issues factoring in. So be it.

 

[davebenj]

The real problem is as was said that Winnipeg should be in the Northwest division. Heck, even the divisions now are a little weird. Dallas for example should probably not be in the Pacific division although I can sort of see why they are.

Alas, I don't quite know how they are going to handle the Winnipeg situation without annoying one team or another.

 

[NJDevs26]

People romanticize the past way too much. I was both very young and very unborn in those days - but from the majority of those that were NHL fans in that time, I've been told it was redundant and unwatchable til the conference finals.

Well it's not even like that was the format for decades anyway. I believe '93 was the end of division playoffs, and 1980 the Flyers and Islanders met in the SCF, so it was less than fifteen years that they had the 'all-division' playoff setup.

 

[Bleedred]

Patrick division! Those were the days!

 

[Saugus]

"It was like losing my right aaerrrm...."

The great thing is, they can just reuse the same interview clip when he gets bought out.

"Mr Richards, how did you feel when you heard about Brad getting bought out?"

"It was like losing my right aaaerrrm."

 

[Bleedred]

Why does he sound like he's from Boston/New England? Isn't Richards from Canada?