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.

 

[Grifter3511]

The preseason is entirely for the teams to get themselves ready for actual meaningful games. How they choose to do that is up to them. It is not about the fans. The NHL does not, nor should they, care that Voyageur cannot accurately assess the quality of a particular player during this period.

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.

It's preseason. You should have zero expectations.

 

[tarheelhockey]

It's preseason. You should have zero expectations.

Then don’t charge admission. That’s also fine.

Charging market-value prices for a sub-market product isn’t ok.

 

[Stealth1616]

It’s the beginning of preseason, there is always going to be poor rosters to start.

Non-issue considering each team can run their preseason however they want

 

[Grifter3511]

Then don’t charge admission. That’s also fine.

Charging market-value prices for a sub-market product isn’t ok.

No one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy tickets. It's not like it's a surprise or a secret what the product will be. Why anyone would want to pay even 25% market value to watch a team of Randoms play your team of Randoms in a meaningless game with varying levels of effort is beyond me.

 

[voyageur]

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

The best prospects should play in those meaningful games, if you want to measure them. You generally know who is a cut above the rest, from the Young Stars games.

But I'll give you an example of what preseason is. The Jets for their home game against the Oilers, dressed their top 3 lines, their 4th line C and 5 of their top 6 d-men.

The Oilers brought tryout Hoffman, Connor Brown, Janmark, Derek Ryan, Kulak to town. I guess Emberson was a d prospect. Maybe Dineen. Savoie and Sam O'Reilly are legit prospects. But what's the point of even playing that game? Fine tune your stars against 4th liners, 3rd pairing d-men and AHL/CHL players? Is that what preseason really is?

To their credit the Jets brought young stars to Minnesota and got bounced. But the roster disparities in some of these preseason games, like the Florida/Carolina game I mentioned is awful. I don't follow every other league's preseasons, but generally you go out there to compete?

 

[tarheelhockey]

No one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy tickets. It's not like it's a surprise or a secret what the product will be. Why anyone would want to pay even 25% market value to watch a team of Randoms play your team of Randoms in a meaningless game with varying levels of effort is beyond me.

Season ticket holders are indeed forced to buy preseason games, or otherwise walk away from their long-term investment in the franchise.

The absolute least that management can do in return is try and make the games tolerable. If you have an A team and a B team, play the A team at home so the ticket holders can watch an NHL-level team or at least give/sell them away with some value attached.

 

[HockeyVirus]

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.

I remember when Mike Babcock played his B roster at home in Toronto and people were pissed having paid decent money for a pre-season game expecting to see the stars. Then he acted shocked when asked afterwords about playing the roster there and that fans were upset and said they just do what they need to get ready for the season. (Reminder season ticket holders have to buy some pre-season games and get charged regular amount for them to get the packages).

Last time that ever happened I think management stepped in

 

[Malkinstheman]

It definitely needs to be shorter. 7 preseason games is absurd. The season itself is long enough at 82 games. Make it 4 games max

 

[Mattb124]

OP. don’t watch pre-season hockey. Problem solved.

 

[Oilslick941611]

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

the only requirements as far I can see is they must play a minimum of 6 games up to a max of 8. and they must play at least 8 veterans in a game, or 6 vets with at least 30 games played last season.

 

[HuGo Sham]

This made me laugh pretty hard lol

Don't hate, he just has a different concept of time. An hour feels like a day; he had Tuesday's lunch an hour ago

 

[Oilslick941611]

No one is holding a gun to anyone's head forcing them to buy tickets. It's not like it's a surprise or a secret what the product will be. Why anyone would want to pay even 25% market value to watch a team of Randoms play your team of Randoms in a meaningless game with varying levels of effort is beyond me.

actually yes there is.

Season ticket holders are required to buy pre season tickets. At least in Edmonton they are.