Should the NHL amend its preseason structure?

[voyageur]

Looking at the out of town scoreboard, the Hurricanes stars are pasting an inexperience Panthers lineup. Earlier in the week got to see the Jets vets hammer a mostly AHL Oilers squad. For fans are we getting shortchanged? Is there any point in having regular rosters play tryout rosters in preseason?

Could the NHL amend the preseason to give the 1st week of preseason for young stars and borderline players to compete, and then finish with 3-4 meaningful games where only the A prospects participate, and all the AHL calibre players go back to their respective training camps? Maybe have rosters cut down to 30 by the final week/2 weeks. Because preseason is essentially pointless, the only concern about higher calibre play is the risk for injury, but the iniquity in many rosters makes it almost impossible to actually assess a player in action.

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[Three On Zero]

No.

 

[Barrie22]

How would the prospects learn how to play against pros if they are only playing against other prospects.

 

[carjackmalone]

Preseason games till fairly recently give or take a few decades were mostly played in small to mid sized hockey crazed cities across Canada.

 

[ItWasJustified]

I'm pretty sure it's up to each team to decide how to run their preseason and camp.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

I think the best way to do exhibition games is do 80% of them in cities without an NHL team, like how Utah/St. Louis did one in Iowa or other countries like how the Coyotes and Kings did Australia last year. But before the season two at home and two away.

If it's a new team trying to make new fans like Seattle, Vegas, Utah, then they should just play the games at their home rink.

 

[2014nyr]

the entire purpose of the preseason is to put different players in different positions to get the most comprehensive evaluation of their organizational depth and which players they view as comprising the strongest nhl roster. anyone entitled enough to complain about a fkn preseason roster not satisfying their expectations would probably also crack the shts if they lost one of their stars for the season in a preseason game though...there's always a reason to complain i guess

 

[Rorschach]

I disagree that the pre-season is pointless as is.

 

[Jumptheshark]

it should be noted that there is in place rules for teams and that X amount of players have to have X amount experience in the NHL.

We complain every preseason about this

 

[Matt Ress]

Isn't it known that generally the home team uses a more NHL lineup while the away team uses a more AHL lineup? This gives home team fans some inspiration while getting younger players some experience against NHL level guys.

The Sabres have an interesting schedule this year as they've been in Europe for a week now with their expected full NHL squad while the team is still officially playing preseason games here with a depleted AHL roster.

 

[JPT]

Preseason games till fairly recently give or take a few decades were mostly played in small to mid sized hockey crazed cities across Canada.

This made me laugh pretty hard lol

 

[Voight]

I think the best way to do exhibition games is do 80% of them in cities without an NHL team, like how Utah/St. Louis did one in Iowa or other countries like how the Coyotes and Kings did Australia last year. But before the season two at home and two away.

If it's a new team trying to make new fans like Seattle, Vegas, Utah, then they should just play the games at their home rink.

Yea ive always said the NHL should do more neutral site games during the pre season.

 

[tarheelhockey]

I’m ok with it provided one important caveat: A-teams at home and B-teams on the road.

If someone pays for a ticket — hell, even if they get one for free — there is no reason they should have to watch a bunch of AHL’ers get annihilated for 3 hours.