Should the NHL amend its preseason structure?

[coooldude]

As a shark fan you would of missed carle forcing his way onto the team, vlasic doing the same thing.

Are you saying that if we changed preseason, Carle and Vlasic would have not forced their way onto the team, or that I just wouldn't have seen it with my eyes? At the time, I didn't care... if they made it and stuck in the NHL, then I cared.

 

[BlueSeal]

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?

What you're asking for is what we call the Regular Season. You get 82 games of that plus playoffs if everything goes your favorite team's way. Maybe even a Shiny Cup to remind you of the success of that season.

 

[ffh]

Teams can pick how many games they play and whom ever they want to play. Min 8 vets. How much more control do they need.

 

[Chainshot]

Teams can pick how many games they play and whom ever they want to play. Min 8 vets. How much more control do they need.

They are required by the league to have at least 6 games and no more than 8 games total. I could see 4 for the low end and 6 for the high end. *shrug*

 

[eojsmada]

They are required by the league to have at least 6 games and no more than 8 games total. I could see 4 for the low end and 6 for the high end. *shrug*

I'd like to just see 4, period.

If they want to give prospects more chances to play against higher competition...expand the rosters by 2 for the first 5 games of the season for signed prospects with more than 1 year of waiver eligibility.

There are ways of doing it that give teams a chance to get their starters reps, while also helping to give prospects more time against higher competition. There needs to be a growing concern to keeping the goonery out of the preseason games. Split squads and sending a squad of players who have no chance of making the NHL roster to play against a squad of mostly starters, is just, beyond dumb and frankly archaic.

Of course the easy way for the Players to get the owners to drop all of these preseason games is to have a 4 team tournament for two spots into the Playoffs, at the end of the season. Players would drop preseason like a bad habit.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

We should also make the preseason shorter and start the NHL season earlier so the season could end as late as June 15 and start the draft the following Friday.

 

[Pavels Dog]

Red Wings have 6 preseason games this week. 6 in 6 days.

Most of them are more difficult to watch than the average Swedish tier-3 preseason game.

Yes, something needs to change in regards with how the NHL handles this.

 

[Suntouchable13]

Regular season should be starting this week, but NHL gonna NHL. Teams have to play 6 preseason games? Let's get on with it already.

 

[Koivu11]

 

[njdevils1982]

preseason is fine. what they need to do is get rid of regular season games in europe

ya, im biased

 

[Coffees]

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?

No means no, do you have any other questions ?

 

[Mandar]

The real question is…if you change the preseason structure, does Calgary still win the preseason cup? Or would they have to cancel the parade?

 

[Brodeur]

We should also make the preseason shorter and start the NHL season earlier so the season could end as late as June 15 and start the draft the following Friday.

I don't disagree with you, but the reason the season drags is because of the TV partners.

ESPN is broadcasting the MLB wild card round this week, so they previously asked the NHL to wait to open the season until the week after to avoid being overshadowed. Fox/TBS broadcast the next round of the baseball playoffs which then frees up ESPN for hockey.

The NHL and NBA have made an effort not to step on each other's toes especially in years where ABC/ESPN/TNT have TV rights for both. In 2012-13, the lockout pushed the season back and 5 of the 6 SCF games ran against the NBA Conference Finals which caused a noticeable drop in viewership. In other years there was occasional overlap between SCF game 1 and an NBA Conference Final Game 7 which caused a 20-25% drop in ratings for hockey.

TL;DR The networks would prefer not to have the SCF run against the NBA because ratings would take a hit in the US.

 

[NyQuil]

I've never attended a pre-season game with the hope or expectation to see a solid entertainment product.

I am hoping to see what guys I probably won't see in the uniform during regular season look like.

 

[Cup or Bust]

I think they could shorten it a bit. 8 games is overkill. Obviously a person doesn't need to watch them but it just seems unnecessary. With the amount of practicing, 3-4 games is probably enough for most pro's to get comfortable. Probably 6 games max is enough per team, it gives your prospects and bubble players enough time to show what they have. It would also force teams to play a more pro lineup most games as well, making the games more entertaining for people that want to view them.