originaljroc

With Seattle coming in, the NHL should go to a different playoff format. It would work great with eight divisions of four teams each (four in each conference). Four division winners get the top four seeds in each conference and then there are four wild cards. Divisions would work nicely as: WEST 1. Seattle, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary 2. San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Vegas 3. Arizona, Colorado, Dallas, Nashville 4. Winnipeg, Minnesota, Chicago, St. Louis EAST 1. Florida, Tampa Bay, Carolina, Washington 2. Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia 3. Toronto, Ottawa, Montreal, Boston 4. Buffalo, NY Rangers, NY Islanders, New Jersey Play each team in your division six times = 18 games Play each team in one other division in your conference four times = 16 games (division would rotate on a three-year cycle like the NFL). Play every other team in the league twice = 48 games Total: 82 games Seems to make too much sense not to work for me. Thoughts?

1. Hockey News will refuse to eat crow after their ‘first-place’ Flames miss the playoffs. 2. Nashville is not as good as everyone thinks they are and will finish behind both Winnipeg and St. Louis. And maybe Dallas, too. 3. San Jose finally wins a Cup .... 4. Over Florida. 5. Toronto riots when Leafs lose in first round again. 6. Vegas misses playoffs. 7. Kris Russell blocks some shots 8. Sam Steel wins Calder 9. First coach fired is Jeff Blashill 10. Seattle hires Ken Holland as GM after he leaves Detroit 11. Rick DiPietro still collects a paycheque 12. Most surprising team will be Montreal. 13. Jaromir Jagr attempts to come back again ... in Buffalo. 14. Patrik Laine reaches 50 goals. 15. Zdeno Chara finally granted his own zip code. 16. Some more people forget there’s a team in Arizona. 17. Carter Hart starts for Flyers by January. 18. Oilers return to the playoffs. 19. Canucks win draft lottery, reunite Hughes brothers. 20. Senators trade Duchene for three unknown Latvian prospects.

You've maxed out your IR ... before the NHL season has even started. That's where the Octopi are starting out in the PCFL. Anyone else in the same boat?

Definitely higher than I thought they'd sign him for, but that deal should look pretty good a few years from now.

More of a gut feeling. I’ve just said to myself more than once in the past few drafts that they made a very shrewd pick where they were picking. Tkachuk was, arguably, the best pick of the first round this year where they got him. Let’s put it this way: there are many other GMs you scratch your head at in the draft before Dorion. He might be the worst GM in the NHL at trading, though, so I’m not really saying they’re in good hands overall.

Can't say Dorion is great at trading, so that doesn't give much hope for getting fair asking price in offloading those veterans. If there is a hope for Sens fans, though, it's that Dorion and his crew are actually really good at the draft table. I'd put them top 10 in the league, for sure, and possibly even top five in their work at the draft table. That's way more than can be said for ... ahem ... the Oilers, for example.

Great deal. I wouldn't have actively shopped him in a trade in the spring if I thought he'd come in this low.

CFHL is done!

PCFL #37 HUEL #18

I wonder what dominoes are falling after this. Does this mean Matthews is dealt? My hot take: Matthews is dealt to Arizona for OEL and Keller.

Exactly. On talent, Carolina wins this trade by a mile (a stud and more for two maybes). But as we saw with Hoffman, sometimes fixing the off-ice chemistry is more important. I think that's what Calgary tried to do here.

Carolina definitely won that trade. Hamilton is the best player in the deal hands down, so they won it just from that perspective. But I also like Fox to one day be every bit as good as Hanifin. Lindholm is just a meh player to me, but others are clearly higher on him.

I hope you're right about Koskinen. Don't know enough about him yet. Of course, it doesn't mean we Oilers fans won't be hitting the sauce hard if Talbot should be moved.

Oh man, that's depressing. Can't believe they decided he should still be the one making decisions for the franchise.

Heck, Griffin Reinhart would probably be available, too.

On the Oilers front, I just hope Chia doesn't go nuts. Slow and steady wins the race. Panic trades have been his biggest downfall. I have no problem if they keep No. 10 and just take the best player available, regardless of position, but something tells me he will panic again.

I'm not in Montreal, but I don't see them in a full rebuild situation. They just need a centre and probably two of them, so O'Reilly makes a lot of sense, although I wouldn't give up the third overall pick to do it. Those seconds though ... Both Price and Weber are bouncing back this season. I like Patches in a contract year to recoup his value, too. And Drouin will be better with a year under his belt in the Montreal media market.

I would agree on keeping the pick. Even if they're bad next season, there's no guarantee they'll do better than fourth overall. It's all in the hands of a lottery where they will pick. Plus, picking that prospect this year (Zadina? Tkachuk? Hughes?) means you will have a top-end guy with an extra year of development in your system, hereby moving your rebuild along faster. Finally, I heard a radio host tout this idea about it: what kind of message would it send to your team next season if you gave up the fourth overall pick this year for a chance at No. 1 next year? That we're expecting you to be in the bottom three, so don't play so hard that you finish better than that? That's a recipe for further organizational disaster.

Dibs on naming my next team this.

This trade feels a little like Eberle for Strome. My guess is they think they have a shot at Tavares and needed the extra cap space to go after him.

It's crazy that you got that kind of return for him. I didn't even try to trade him because it was always highly unlikely he'd resign before the deadline and I never thought there would be a taker. Good on you.

Wow! Normally stuff like this just lives on the rumour mill. The Phaneuf sleeping with Conroy rumour comes to mind as a drama that forced a trade, but this one is straight out of a soap opera plot.

I hate it when sports and politics mix. Players shouldn't be made to feel like policital pawns when all they're doing is honouring a tradition of visiting the sitting President. It should be considered a visit to an institution, not a political party.

Looks like no hearing for Wilson. While the hit was late, it wasn't a headshot, so it really doesn't warrant more than an interference penalty. Jono, you do have a point about Perron. Technically there were scrums all over the ice at the time and he came on as a sixth man. Not allowed. 10 games would seem harsh for that, but remember when Tkachuk got 10 for poking at a player with his stick after leaving the ice? That wasn't any worse.

Agreed, there would be technological differences. There would also be way more clutching and grabbing in Bossy's era. Ovechkin's shot isn't exactly a slouch either, though. But none of that actually matters. All that matters is the math. Again, goalies let in one more goal a game in Bossy's era; hence Ovie's Caps would have scored one goal a game there. Or, to bring the conversation to the modern era, Bossy's Islanders would have scored one less goal a game today, despite the technological changes.