2009 NHL Playoff Thread

Pittsburgh Penguins remove interim tag on Bylsma.

from Pens PR:

The Pittsburgh Penguins have removed the "interim" tag from Dan Bylsma's
title and formally named him head coach on Tuesday.

Bylsma had served as interim head coach since Feb. 15.

"Dan has done such an impressive job with our team, both on and off the
ice, that we didn't see the need to wait any longer to announce our
decision," said Ray Shero, the Penguins' executive vice president and
general manager. "He is the man we want to lead the Pittsburgh Penguins
as our head coach."

 

Mark you make yourself look more moronic with every post. Nobody and I mean nobody in the league thinks being on versus is better than being on ESPN. ESPN did not tape delay games when they had the NHL before so why would they now. The whole country gets ESPN, the whole country does not get Versus. ESPN 2 is better for the league than Versus, I don't know how you can even debate this.


By the way how can Camilleri be untouchable when he is a UFA.

Shorter schedule is a pipe dream, do you think owners are going to lose those gates, which in turn lowers player salaries.

Should the Canucks still have signed Naslund?

 

So now the NHL has "No Ordinary" Joe Sakic and "Regular Season" Joe Thornton.

Talk about hiding under the kitchen table for the first round.

 

Two points:

1. Mark -- It wasn't one slip-up for the Sharks. They lost four times in six games to a team that finished 30 points below them in the standings. That's the point of series. It eliminates fluky results. Four losses in six games is a pretty good sample size.

2. Read the Inside the NHL part of SI this week and they advocate going back to a divisional playoff format to get more rivals playing each other in the first round. Sounds great. I remember all those great Patrick Division rivalries when I was growing up. But how the heck could you implement it with six divisions? I suppose you could consolidate back into four divisions and then take the top four from each for the playoffs, but that's a major hole that wasn't addressed in the story.

 

The Hockey News had a similar column in a recent issue. The NHL would have to go back to four divisions to do it. Problem is, in each conference, you'd have a 7-team division and an 8-team division unless the league made a team switch conferences.

I like the idea though. If they went with unbalanced divisions, it would probably look like this:

Eastern Conference

Rangers
Islanders
Devils
Bruins
Sabres
Canadiens
Senators
Leafs

Penguins
Flyers
Capitals
Lightning
Hurricanes
Panthers
Thrashers

Western Conference

Red Wings
Black Hawks
Blue Jackets
Predators
Blues
Wild
Stars

Flames
Oilers
Canucks
Avs
Sharks
Ducks
Kings
Yotes

 

Yeah but with that system, you'd more often than not have one or two teams sneaking in because of the format that don't belong over other teams. Screw "rivalries" in the first round, just let the top eight teams in.

The first round has been fantastic. Why does it even need change?

 

What would ESPN have done?

They'd have had the Flames-Blackhawks on at 9:30, moved Monday Night Baseball to ESPN2 and had the Sharks-Ducks game starting right after at 10:30 p.m.

Tonight, they'd have shown both Game 7's, one on either network, instead of poker re-runs and yet another NFL draft wrap-up show.

 

This has kinda morphed into an all purpose hockey thread so I'll announce it here.

Brampton Battalion's Cody Hodgson was just named the Ontario Hockey League's Most Valuable Player.

He was Vancouver's 10th pick in the first round and, you heard it here first, he will be captain of the Canucks at some point.

 

The players union is making noise about putting a second team in Toronto.

http://sports.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20090427.wsptnhlpa27/GSStory/GlobeSportsHockey/home

 

A Toronto area based group met with Bill Daly last week about the possibility of a second team north of Toronto in Vaughan. Personally, K-W is a better location but the fact that the NHL met with these guys says something. Or maybe not.

But as the Globe article says, the players are losing 25% of their salaries partially because dead in the water franchises are giving away free tickets with the purchase of a big-ass bottle of vodka.

Damien Cox's take on the affair:

http://thestar.blogs.com/thespin/2009/04/a-new-layer-to-an-old-story.html

 

I really can't see a second franchise being viable in Toronto, but we'll see, because I think they'll get one eventually.