MadDog2020 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 I figured I'd start a thread on this since things are a little slow right now while we wait for Lou to fill out the roster in the wake of the Kovalchuk debacle. I also started it because I have no fvcking idea how this stupid system is supposed to work, and I was hoping someone would be able to explain it. This can be the thread that kind of educates everyone on what to look for as far as playoff seeding will go, and to discuss all of the changes division and playoff-wise next year. That said, let's have at it. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SterioDesign Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 (edited) to make it clear. • 2 divisions in each conference • 2 divisions of 7 teams in the West and 2 divisions of 8 teams in the East • Top 3 teams in each division will make the playoffs so thats 12 teams • The last 4 teams getting in will be the "wild-card teams". The 2 next teams with the most points in the conference will get in too. • Matchups will be the winner of the division with the most points will play the wild-card team with the less points... etc etc. • The teams finishing 2nd and 3rd in each division will play in the first round then the winners of each series will play for berths in the conference championship series • so within your divison youre playing 5 games against 2 teams and 4 games against 5 teams. so basically our division is Devils, Rangers, Islanders, Flyers, Washington, Columbus, Carolina and Pittsburgh. So we'll have to be in the top 3 on that conference or be the best wild-cards... Not gonna be easy but lets hope some teams sh!t the bed it could help. edit: oh and yeah with the new schedule we're playing every teams in the league twice i believe. A home and home against all teams. Edited July 16, 2013 by SterioDesign 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
2ELIAS6 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 glad you made this thread becasue i too have no idea what theyre doing hacking up the divisions and what not.. any and all info would be great for all of us to catch up on Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
capo Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 20 playoff teams? Or, is it 4 teams combined for the east and west for the WC? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mort4345 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 20 playoff teams? Or, is it 4 teams combined for the east and west for the WC? No, there are still 16 playoff teams, 8 from each conference. Even though the West has only 14 teams and the East has 16 teams, each conference is still sending 8 teams to the playoffs. The weird part for me, or the part I like the least, is that once the playoff matches are drawn up (seeds 1-4 in each division), those teams remain in that "bracket pool" until the conference finals. So if the best three teams are in our division, for example, those teams will have to battle it out just to get to the conference finals. And because there is no re-seeding like the previous set up, there could theoretically be a lot of crazy-hard matchups from the get-go. In short, if the top two teams happen to come from one division, there's zero chance of those two teams playing in the conference championship. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelastonealive Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Here's how I understand it: The three best teams from each division make it (Let's say from the east it's Devils/Rangers/Penguins from our division, and Maple Leafs/Canadiens/Bruins from the other). Then, the two best teams from each conference, regardless of division, make it as wild card teams (So you can have a team from each - say Flyers and Panthers - or two from the same division - say Flyers and Blue Jackets). So in the east, let's say five teams from our division make it and three from the other: Devils Rangers Penguins Flyers Blue Jackets Maple Leafs Canadiens Bruins The division winner with the most posts gets the wild card team with the fewest. So lets say in this scenario the Maple Leafs finish first in the East and the Devils second, and the Blue Jackets sneak into the playoffs as the 8th seed: DevilsRangers Penguins Flyers Maple Leafs Canadiens Bruins Blue Jackets Those two groups of four then play the first round of the playoffs - 1vs4, 2vs3. Winners play each other in round two. Winners of the second rounds then play each other in the conference finals, winners there play for the Cup. As an example, round 1 might be: Devils Flyers Rangers Penguins Maple Leafs Blue Jackets Canadiens Bruins Making round 2: Devils Rangers Blue Jackets Bruins Conference finals then become Devils/Bruins, and so on. The plus sides to this are divisional matchups for the most part in the first two rounds (except if you have a division with five teams making it, in which one of the bottom two teams will be kicked to the other "division playoff" bracket). Less travel for playoff teams because it's all divisional based. The downsides are you could have a team from the other division winning your "division playoff" (if they make a deal of it or not). No way you can get something like a Devils/Rangers or Devils/Flyers ECF unless one of the two teams is kicked to the other division because of the reasons mentioned above and then get through the first two rounds). 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevilNurn Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 I still just have no idea why it's fair that there are 14 teams in the West and 16 in the East and only 8 come from each. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
thelastonealive Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 It's not particularly fair. But it's a two-year experiment, and I imagine the NHL was thinking that by the time it's up, they'll have two more teams to slot into the west in Seattle and perhaps a Kansas City type market. I think they've kind of glossed over the fan reaction to the unbalanced divisions, but at the same time - the teams approved it, so... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
CaptainRafalski Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Gary bettman has to be a mole trying to destroy the nhl. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoArmySports Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 I still just have no idea why it's fair that there are 14 teams in the West and 16 in the East and only 8 come from each. The MLB had the same uneven format for a while until they moved Houston to the AL this year to even out everything. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
johnmcc215 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Thought I read earlier somewhere Detroit was moving to the EC, still don't get that one though..still confused.. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SterioDesign Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Thought I read earlier somewhere Detroit was moving to the EC, still don't get that one though..still confused.. They wanted more game in their time zone. Because they were east they were playing later even home so i assumed it was hurting attendance a bit Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devils Pride 26 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Incredibly stupid. NHL had the best playoff system in sports. Don't mess with it Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoArmySports Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Have NHL teams in years past ever had split squad pre-season games? I was taking a look at the Islanders pre-season schedule and it says they have split squad games against the Senators. We play the Isles 9/19 at Pru Center which will probably be our first home pre-season game. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DevsMan84 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Have NHL teams in years past ever had split squad pre-season games? I was taking a look at the Islanders pre-season schedule and it says they have split squad games against the Senators. We play the Isles 9/19 at Pru Center which will probably be our first home pre-season game. Devils usually don't but then again historically they do not travel far for their preseason games (usually they only play the Isles, Rags and Flyers). However there may be a possiblity as the Devils are playing Montreal on 9/23/13 in Montreal. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MantaRay Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Incredibly stupid. NHL had the best playoff system in sports. Don't mess with it Agreed. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GoArmySports Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Devils usually don't but then again historically they do not travel far for their preseason games (usually they only play the Isles, Rags and Flyers). However there may be a possiblity as the Devils are playing Montreal on 9/23/13 in Montreal. I think we've played Montreal in years past. Isles have to travel all the way down to Nashville for a pre-season game this year. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devilsfan26 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 At first glance it seems stupid and unnecessary, but I'm glad they are keeping it at four best of seven rounds at least. Increasing the focus on doing well in your division rather than the conference makes it tougher for teams in better divisions, but at least theoretically the skill of each division will fluctuate, although the Southeast becoming good seems to be way overdue. It's also annoying that not every division has the same number of teams but we'll see how long this lasts, it could balance out soon.It's also kind of a bummer that it is now very unlikely to have division rivals face each other in the conference finals, but having divisional playoffs makes the travel less of a disadvantage for the Western teams than the old way, which they have been dealing with for a long time now, so I'm okay with it. I just hope they don't make a big deal of "division champions" since with the wild card teams you will sometimes be playing teams from another division. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devilsfan118 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Wonder how long it is before the NHL goes to 32 teams. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ATLL765 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 At first glance it seems stupid and unnecessary, but I'm glad they are keeping it at four best of seven rounds at least. Increasing the focus on doing well in your division rather than the conference makes it tougher for teams in better divisions, but at least theoretically the skill of each division will fluctuate, although the Southeast becoming good seems to be way overdue. It's also annoying that not every division has the same number of teams but we'll see how long this lasts, it could balance out soon. It's also kind of a bummer that it is now very unlikely to have division rivals face each other in the conference finals, but having divisional playoffs makes the travel less of a disadvantage for the Western teams than the old way, which they have been dealing with for a long time now, so I'm okay with it. I just hope they don't make a big deal of "division champions" since with the wild card teams you will sometimes be playing teams from another division. Theoretically, yes, but in practice, the SE div could just have one good year then go back to another 10 years of being awful. The division champ thing is totally gonna be weird, I don't think there's any way to mitigate that until we get even conferences/divisions. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
devilsfan26 Posted July 16, 2013 Share Posted July 16, 2013 Yeah so like I said theoretically the difficulty of each divisions will fluctuate, but as the Southeast has proven that hasn't really been the case. At least with the new realignment, the Southest division is being split up, but obviously some divisions will still be tougher than others. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Chimaira_Devil_#9 Posted July 18, 2013 Share Posted July 18, 2013 (edited) Wrong thread. Edited July 18, 2013 by Chimaira_Devil_#9 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Matteau#32 Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 Metropolitan division? Terrible. Sounds like something that would be used in the WNBA or Arena Football. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Devlin Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 Metropolitan division? Terrible. Sounds like something that would be used in the WNBA or Arena Football. Yep...what a horrible name, doesn't even sound like it belongs in the NHL. I picture a peewee league. Sent from my Galaxy TAB using Tapatalk 2 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Legion15 Posted July 20, 2013 Share Posted July 20, 2013 http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-puck-daddy/metropolitan-division-nhl-reveals-division-names-realignment-174440888.html From what I’ve been told, Commissioner Gary Bettman pushed for both the geographic names and specifically for the Metropolitan Division as a solution for a basic problem: How do you name a division that covers Canada to Florida? One thought: Keep the Atlantic the Atlantic and rename that Frankenstein’s monster-of-a-division as the Eastern Division. But that would have clashed with the conference name. So Metropolitan was seen as the way to go, with Atlantic being the catch-all geographic distinction for the other division. Thus begins the endless jokes about the division name, which has probably already been re-christened the "Metrosexual Division" by the rest of the NHL. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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