WordsOfWisdom

I really DIDN'T want to pick Tampa to win..... because the favourite rarely ever wins the Cup. I just couldn't select anyone else over Tampa because nobody impressed me among the remaining teams. It's really Tampa and everyone else. If there was anyone even remotely close in points it might have been intriguing, but there was no good reason not to select Tampa to win it all.

LOL. No love for Colorado or Dallas.....

So it'll be ball hockey on roller blades then?

Agreed. Ottawa fans are good hockey fans that will support a decent team. As for the Florida Panthers, they just need the Canadian dollar to rebound so they get their snowbird fanbase back.

Ottawa's arena is in the middle of nowhere. It feels like it's 25 km outside the city limits lol.

We're all going to be so screwed if Tampa doesn't win the Cup lol.

Here's my bracket:

Is there a bracket challenge for this year? Absolutely... Create your bracket on NHL.com with League name HockeyForums, password HockeyForums https://bracketchallenge.nhl.com/leagues/hockeyforums

If the NHL operated under the system that MLB uses, then tonight's game would have meant a great deal to Toronto. Pittsburgh finished with 100 points, so Toronto would have needed to get the game to OT to clinch the final wild card spot (which they did) and prepare for their wild card game against Washington. You have to admit that would be infinitely better. The only intrigue with tonight's game was watching Bob Cole call his final game. Toronto finishes with a .500 record on Saturday games (I'm not impressed) and to me, this is only just barely a playoff calibre team. It has pros and cons. I don't mind the division based focus of the current system. Agreed. The problem the NHL has is that all the intrigue in February and March is focused on the BOTTOM of the standings. The race of .500 teams battling for 8th. The focus should be on the TOP teams as they battle for playoff spots. I look at the last month's worth of games and I didn't watch a lot of them because they didn't mean anything. Toronto had nothing to play for. Boston had nothing to play for. Tampa had nothing to play for. The three most exciting teams in the division and I'm watching what amounts to pre-season exhibition games... in March. It's like a schedule "dead zone" of nothing games. The more teams that are allowed in, the larger and longer that dead zone gets until ultimately the regular season means nothing. I know this is my personal hobby horse but I truly believe MLB has it right. Having the upper 1/3 of teams in is the right number.

You have to admit that would be an improvement though right?

Well it was a nice effort against the Lightning last night, but the Leafs came up short. Probably the Leafs entire season encapsulated in one game right there. They're good enough to make the playoffs, but that's about all they can do. The NHL and NBA have this unique class of teams which enter the playoffs with no realistic chance of winning a championship (other than by injuries and dumb puck bounces). You can't say that about MLB or the NFL. That begs the question of: "Why have them in the playoffs in the first place?" (See my separate thread on that topic if you're interested.) The Leafs have one game left and one last chance to get over 100 points. They'll be playing a Montreal team that (like Toronto) has nothing at stake for this game and will probably be playing at "regular season" intensity level... so I'm predicting a Leafs win here to finish the season off. The Leafs are 3-7 in their last 10 games, entering the playoffs cold. A loss to Montreal and you can make that "ice cold".

Assuming Toronto wins, they would play the Capitals in a wild card game to determine the fourth team in the East. (Epic.) Assuming Toronto won that match, it would be: 1. Tampa vs 4. Toronto 2. Boston vs 3. NYI Assuming Washington won, it would be: 1. Tampa vs 4. NYI 2. Boston vs 3. Washington

I like the idea of having six divisions again. Division leaders are in. Then you have two wild card teams like MLB that play a best-of-1 to decide the 4th and final team in each conference. The playoffs would then continue as usual, effectively starting from the second round on. That would mean the East would look like this right now: (Using the old six-division format and ignoring re-alignment issues and defunct teams....) Northeast Division Boston Toronto Montreal Detroit Buffalo Ottawa Southeast Division Tampa Bay Washington Carolina Florida Atlanta Atlantic Division New York Islanders Pittsburgh Philadelphia New York Rangers New Jersey So Boston, Tampa, and NYI would be in the playoffs. The Capitals would own the first wild card spot and the Leafs and Penguins would be tied for the final wild card spot heading into the last game of the season with Toronto holding the tie breakers. MLB does it better. This would be so much more exciting. The games would actually mean something in February and March unlike now.

In MLB, 10/30 teams make the playoffs. (1/3) In the NHL, 16/31 teams make the playoffs. (1/2)

When I look at the NHL standings and see FIVE teams from a division of seven or eight teams selected for the playoffs, I rip my hair out. I realize the league wants to create an atmosphere where every team plays a "meaningful" game until game 82 when half of the teams are eliminated from playoff contention. That's the NHL's dream. Unfortunately, what happens is you get the opposite problem. By making it difficult to miss the playoffs, half of the teams in the NHL (the playoff bound teams) have schedules filled with meaningless games in February and March. So as the regular season should be reaching its climax, the most exciting games were in October, November, and December. The ones that determined whether your favourite team was going to make the playoffs or not. Once you hit January, February, and March, it's already decided. The upper teams are just waiting for the season to end so the playoffs can get going. In an effort to eliminate "meaningless" games from the bottom teams in the league by preventing early playoff elimination, the league has moved the meaningless games to the upper half of the teams instead. I think the NHL needs a system much closer to what MLB has so that good teams are battling other good teams right up to game 82 for those final playoff positions rather than coasting. Thoughts?

Have we reached the saturation point with jerseys yet? Does an NHL jersey mean anything any more? It's as though teams are playing a game of color Monopoly. First team to collect all the colors wins. Teams that are playing well in NHL Color Monopoly include: Vancouver (blue, green, black, yellow, orange, red, silver, burgundy) Buffalo (blue, yellow, black, red, silver) Anaheim Tampa Bay New York Islanders Edmonton Calgary Minnesota Los Angeles Washington Pittsburgh etc. Teams that are lagging behind in NHL Color Monopoly include: Montreal (Where are the green and yellow jerseys? What about silver and burgundy?) Ottawa (Same as above, and they haven't even wore blue and white yet!) Detroit (Anxiously awaiting Detroit's new blue and green uniforms!) Biggest movers and shakers recently include: Toronto (now claiming green)

As mentioned previously, I gave the Leafs a free pass a few weeks back for their poor play because we all knew they had a playoff spot secured and the games didn't really matter. I said that a team wants to get hot as they enter the playoffs so that they're playing well as round one begins. Well, now I'm concerned. Even though the last few games against Carolina, Tampa, and Montreal don't mean anything for Toronto in the standings, this is a valuable playoff "tune up" and the Leafs don't appear ready. A rather uninspiring 4-1 loss to Carolina the other night is an issue. The Hurricanes are playing a playoff style of game right now.... and the Leafs aren't. Is this team going to flip a switch when game #1 arrives against Boston? Or are the Leafs going to find themselves down 0-2 or 0-3 in the series before they finally wake up and start playing like it counts? Thoughts?

Tan and green are meant for each other. Case in point:

The legacy green jerseys of the Leafs have been trotted out lately for St. Patrick's Day/week/month?... My thinking is, they messed up because they didn't include the tan colored trunks. It's not supposed to be all green. It's supposed to be green and tan. If you're going to "kick it 1926 style" then get the pants right.

I figured it would have had to have been something like that. I've heard that there's been an incredible rise in the number of accidents involving transport trucks in the past year. I have no doubt it's a combination of driver fatigue/boredom, working unusual hours, and poor driver education/training because they're so desperate for truck drivers all the time.

LOL. I was being sarcastic of course, but I'm picturing a highway overpass or something. Busses are heavy, so people don't usually die in bus crashes until it rolls over or unless it hits a similarly large object like a transport truck. Anything less than that and nobody would even have a scratch on them.

It's a combination of: Artificially low speed limits (in the US, they would be driving 80mph on a road like that) Poor traffic separation (the oncoming traffic needs to separated by a median) Have extra wide shoulders so tractors and other farm equipment are not riding down the lane where regular traffic is Have sections of road where it forks to two lanes so faster traffic can overtake. But it all costs money. Thousands of miles of road and not many people that live out that way, thus nobody to pay for infrastructure upgrades. Many of Ontario's roads are dated and unsafe too, and it takes so long for the government to finally upgrade them.

I've seen all the memorial shows about this incident but I've never heard anything about HOW the accident happened, or any details about the cause of the accident. How do 15+ people die on a bus? Did it roll off the side of a cliff? Was this a head-on collision with a transport truck? Some details are usually helpful in cases like these.

Amen! Agreed. The divisions are intended to cut down on travel and build rivalries with your nearest teams. I actually hated when baseball started interleague play. Again, as a Jays fan, I have no interest in seeing any of the National League teams unless it's in the World Series. Toronto has no rivalry with any of them.