2019-2020 NHL season thread

Tarasenko out five months. Obviously a huge blow to the Blues.

 

It's the Athletic, so you obviously need a subscription, but an interesting read on Jonathan Toews and his desire to see a radical change to the NHL schedule with more series and less travel.

Introducing the Toews Schedule, a dramatically reimagined...

I don't hate it, though I do dislike the idea of not playing teams from the other conference home and away. You should be able to see every team in the league in your building at least once. I've seen some weird back to backs in recent years (Caps in Chicago one night, in Carolina the next, with predictably ugly results on the second night). Once Seattle comes into the league, going to four-team divisions -- four in each conference -- could be an answer. Play your division foes four times each (18 games), three each against two other divisions in the conference (24 games), home and away against another division (8 games), and home and away with the other conference (32 games). That gets you to 82 games. Your division winners each make the playoffs, with the four best records in the conference after that getting in as well as wild cards. (Sorry, I'm a bit of a scheduling nerd and I clearly don't have enough to do at work today.)

EAST
NYR, NYI, PHI, NJ
BOS, MTL, BUF, TOR
DET, OTT, CBJ, PIT
WSH, CAR, FLA, TB

WEST
CHI, STL, MIN, WPG
SEA, VAN, CAL, EDM
LA, ANA, SJ, VGK
DAL, NSH, COL, ARI

 

Bring back Red Wings - Blackhawks.

 

The current geographical breakdown is weird with Detroit and Chicago, Original Six archrivals in opposite conferences, so most of the unbalanced schedule plans have them meeting only a couple times a year.
Of course, for 20-some years while the Red Wings were really good, they were Western Conference while four of the Original Six were Eastern, so you only got a couple Detroit-Toronto, Montreal, Boston and New York games per year.

Now the Red Wings suck again, and from all appearances will for several more seasons, people aren't as worked up about it.

 

Detroit and Nashville are the most problematic teams, geographically. Detroit fans want to be back in the West but the team sure doesn't want to be, not with all of those 10 p.m. EST starts and ridiculous travel. Nashville is probably the league's most isolated team, not within four hours of anyone. (EDIT: Actually, Colorado has to be the most isolated, my bad.)

 

When the league goes to 32 next year, that's a perfect geometrical number for divisions, etc etc.

However with 32 teams and an 82-game schedule, it's obvious no easy schedule solution is possible.

Of course, there's probably a franchise shift or two coming in the next several years (Arizona to Quebec??)

 

Didn't the NHL try something like this a few years back? A lot of fans out West howled how they'd only see some of the Eastern teams on their ice every other year. I could also see the NHL's U.S. TV partners ignoring the Western Division even more, unless necessary, say, the Kings or Sharks getting hot.

OTOH, more SJS-VGK games? Wow.

 

Nashville's true rival are the Red Wings. Fans aren't called Predwings for nothing.

 

I for one am happy the Wings are back in the East where they belong