WordsOfWisdom

My thoughts exactly lol. If someone can show me even ONE GOAL that directly resulted from a goalie NOT coming out to play the puck, I might reconsider my view. Until then, my stance is that a goalie should only come out to play the puck behind the goal line if (and only if) all of the following conditions occur: There are no opposing players in the zone. The puck has settled, and there is no danger of a weird carom off the boards. It is beneficial to do so in that you save the defender time in having to skate back to play the puck. Example: On a power play, to exploit a line change, etc.

Sadly, the Leafs haven't had a guy like that on their roster since the days of Gary Roberts, Tie Domi, Darcy Tucker, and co.

Stay in the net!!!

Bingo! If the trade is a GOOD trade, why would Buffalo care if Eichel went to a division rival? If you want to keep Eichel, you keep him. If you feel you're stronger without him, then you should want him to go to your closest rival. (Reverse psychology.) However, what will likely happen is the Sabres will make a bad deal to move Eichel to the other conference (let's say he gets flipped to LA). He'll play one season (or less) in LA and then get flipped at the trade deadline (when the Kings are down and out) to go to the Panthers, Red Wings, or Bruins. I guarantee you he'll be back in the East within a year, and the only thing that can stop him from being in the same division again is the Flyers or Rangers. The Flyers want him badly. The Rangers don't really want anyone but everyone wants to play in New York for the Rangers, so they tend to get everyone.

Probability per team: Kings: 15% Ducks: 5% Wild: 0% Rangers: 40% Flyers: 40% Blue Jackets: 0%

The Boomerang Law of professional hockey states that: "The farther you trade a player away, the sooner and the closer he will get bounced back."

Toronto will free up the cap space to add yet another scoring forward to its mixture of one-dimensional hockey. Going back to Buffalo would be Jack Campbell, Morgan Rielly, Jake Muzzin, Jason Spezza, Alex Kerfoot, and Toronto's #1 draft pick for the next five years.

Kind of pitiful actually. The Habs are like the Yankees/Red Sox/Dodgers of hockey. If it's a case of "don't root for Habs because they're the Canadian team" then that really pisses me off. If it's a case of "don't root for the Habs because they suck and don't belong here" then I'm on board with that.

I've never had any respect for basketBAWL players or the game itself. Never will. Just a bunch of whiny oversized thugs with zero perspective on anything. Generally trash human beings as well.

Too late for Rask. Would only anger Toronto fans that he wasn't here all along. I think Campbell is fine and Andersen could be a veteran backup if he stays healthy, but he is clearly not #1 material any longer because his decline has spanned multiple years now. Given his injury problems though, I think Andersen is probably done. Just can't rely on him to be healthy any more.

It sucks to lose this year, but then again not really. The mitigating factors are: Covid year. (No fans allowed in. No 82-game schedule. No normal division setup. No thanks.) Injuries to Tavares and Muzzin. Look at who's left. I don't need anyone putting an asterisk next to the Leafs Cup win by saying it was a only 56-game season or that it was only the North division, blah blah blah. Don't need to have the Leafs championship year be a year where nobody can watch the games live and nobody can have a parade afterwards to celebrate. Plus, look at the playoff teams remaining. The Knights? The Islanders? The Lightning? Ugh. I remember the season (recently) where Tampa went through FOUR original six teams on their Stanley Cup path. Nobody in Toronto would have wanted to see Vegas or the Islanders. The Lightning are entertaining, and recent champs, but there's no rivalry there with Toronto, and they still don't hold any special drawing power to Toronto fans. So all in all, it would have been a boring and lame playoffs with the worst finish ever. I'll pass.

Now we'll finally get to see how the North division representative fairs against an opponent outside the division.

I think the point system is one of those things that makes hockey unique. Ties should make a comeback as well. The ties and points system are a nod to the European heritage in the league (Canada --> Britain, etc.) Americans specifically, are accustomed to just wins and losses. I'm hoping the league fixes its points system back to 2-0-1 (W-L-T) like it was before and keeps it indefinitely. No sports league should ever surrender one of its unique attributes to be more like another sports league. Always keep your uniqueness. Baseball opened the game up to interleague play to be more like the NHL and NBA. Big mistake. The AL/NL separation is what made MLB cool and different. It added a mystique to the game that only fans of my generation and older will ever know. Simply put: If you're not of a particular age, then you don't know what it's like to watch a sport where the other 50% of the players you can only see in the World Series or the all-star game. They were mysterious. You knew about them but you couldn't see them. You didn't know how good they were until your team played them. MLB killed both attractions in one fell swoop with that ONE bad move.

Part 2: Bob McCown - Primetime Sports - Nov 2 2009 - Mentions my proposed NHL PTS system - Part 2.mp3

@ruxpin Here's the audio clip. Part 1: (The original topic of the show was the NHL points system.) Bob McCown - Primetime Sports - Nov 2 2009 - Mentions my proposed NHL PTS system - Part 1.mp3

Had to take a closer look at this. If the teams have the same number of games played, would they ever be ordered differently in the standings by winning percentage than by points? A team at 6-4-1 is 1 point ahead of the 6-4-0 team but we acknowledge that the 6-4-0 team will be ahead IF they win their next game. The points system is just an easier way to express this. If the Leafs win their next game, they're 7-4-0 for 14 points. So that's 14 points to 13 or .636 to .591.

I'm not a fan of the shootout for the following reasons: It waters down (and kills) the most exciting and rarest play in hockey: the 1-on-1 penalty shot (skater vs goalie). The loser still gets a point, so neither side cares who wins the shootout. They keep going with more shooters which gets boring. It's a fake and forced way to end a hockey game. But if the game is going to have some shred of integrity, the league could easily have a 60 minute game, a 5 minute 5-on-5 OT, and then make the shootout a SCARY place for teams to be. You lose the shootout, you get 0 points. You win the shootout, you get 2 points. If neither side scores after 3 shooters each, it's a tie and we all go home. If teams don't like the idea of losing in a skill competition, then win in regulation or OT. Don't let it get there. Either way, the fans got to see their shootout. Maybe they would like ties as long as they can watch breakaways? I don't know. I look at the shootout as one more attempt to break a tie. It doesn't have to break the tie, but that's where I sit alone in my view of the shootout. Nobody else in the hockey world has ever considered that a shootout could have a limit. It doesn't compute. People accept the fact that overtime can have a defined time limit OR it can go on forever until someone wins. Nobody has ever applied that same logic to the shootout until I brought it forward (now over 10 years ago actually and it made sports talk radio because I sent it in to the host as a suggestion). I wonder if I can upload that clip here.

They would go into the tournament to play for the #1 draft pick. A tournament of 8 teams with 3 rounds. Basically you have this: OCT-JAN--------------FEB-MAR---------------APR-MAY Season play---cut-----Season 2 play---cut-----Playoffs ------------------------Draft pick Tournament----------- (Excuse the poor Gantt chart lol.) OCT-JAN = ~60 GP FEB-MAR = ~20 GP Everyone plays from October until April, just like now.

This is perhaps the biggest misconception about the Leafs: Harold Ballard WAS a salary cap. He was the anti-George Steinbrenner. The Leafs didn't ever spend money like a rich team until Ballard DIED. Not surprisingly, that period of time coincided with the Leafs greatest run of modern day success: the four conference final appearances in the 90's and early 2000's. That was the only period of time where the Leafs exercised their financial muscle. After 2005 we had a league imposed cap. Prior to 1990, the Leafs had a Ballard-imposed cap.

I figured I'd get to these individually...... The length of the season does indeed dilute the value of each individual game. However, given the number of teams and the "round robin" like nature of the schedule, I don't see this as the major issue. I think 82 games can work well IF done right (see bottom). I'm in favour of 2-1-0 (W-T-L). I like ties. It leaves unfinished business during the regular season. There's nothing wrong with a tie and as I discussed once ages ago, you can have ties and either keep the shootout or get rid of the shootout. The two aren't mutually exclusive. All the league would have to do is place a limit on the number of shooters, say "3 shooters per side" and if no result occurs after that, it's a tie. Plus we could get rid of the silly 3-on-3 or 4-on-4 OT and just play a normal 5-on-5 OT because the shootout won't ultimately settle many of those games if done with a cap on the number of shooters. (See above.) This is a problem that can only go away through the elimination of the salary cap. As a Toronto fan, we obviously support the elimination of the cap. It hurts us more than any other franchise in the league because we have the most money to spend and can't spend it. Putting a cap on the Leafs is like putting a cap on the Yankees. I agree. Too many teams. A businessman who sees only the US market and takes for granted that Canada will always support the NHL unconditionally. (It won't.) That is perhaps Bettman's biggest mistake. Canada's demographics are changing rapidly and two key sports are poised to lose out big time: Baseball and hockey. MLB hasn't done much to put down roots in Canada. There have been countless opportunities to return to Montreal and expand into Vancouver. The league has been satisfied to have just Toronto. That will cost MLB dearly as baseball is erased from Canada and replaced by soccer, cricket, and other sports. The NHL is mostly tapped out in Canada, but the lack of a second team in Toronto and a return to Quebec City has cost the league BILLIONS of dollars in revenue so far (and counting). The NHL is voluntarily staying in 4th place among the NA leagues by willingly operating at 75% of its full potential. Making the regular season count: Fewer playoff spots makes each game count more (for the teams we care about). Having a series of cuts (like a golf tournament) would make the games count HUGE. This is perhaps the most innovative, unexplored idea ever. Make the first cut at the end of January. The bottom 8 teams are eliminated. Gone. Season over. Those teams play a tournament to decide the #1 draft pick. Everyone else moves on with the season. The second (and final cut) happens end of March. This cut could eliminate up to 16 teams. Now you've got your playoff teams (the remaining 8). For the eliminated teams, they're just done. Everyone else plays on with the playoffs. By splitting the regular season into segments with cuts, it matters all the way through. It's like the difficulty gradually ramps up as you go along. Note: Teams that survive the 1st cut only play each other from January onward. So it's the best of who's left vs the best of who's left. Very entertaining. The playoffs are then the best of the best from that group.

Well it comes down to the basic philosophy that Toronto was the better team over 56 games. Toronto had 77 points. Montreal had only 59 points. That's a much larger sample size than a 7-game series. Montreal managed to squeeze by Toronto over 7 games. Over 56 games, Toronto left Montreal in the dust. In a league where the regular season matters, this matchup never happens. It should be that the #1 team in each division makes the playoffs. The playoffs should be Toronto, Colorado, Pittsburgh, and Carolina. That way it means something to make the playoffs and it means you're a great team to get in. A losing team could never get in. Now, if you want more teams in there, you could have more divisions. A 32-team league could have 8 divisions of 4 teams each. Same rules apply: Only the #1 team in each division would make the playoffs. There has to be some real reward for finishing 1st and home ice advantage is not it. It needs to be playoffs or no playoffs.

I agree. It's exactly as the NHL intended but not how a true sporting event/competition would be intended to work... unfortunately. I've suggested dozens of ways to fix the broken regular season that currently exists. This idea (in this thread) is more of a joke than anything, but even as dumb as it is, it's better than the status quo, at least as far as integrity, competition, and sport is concerned. If the whole "season" was just one big tournament to build up to a champion, everyone has their chance to win and win now. The eliminated teams begin playing for draft picks, so there's always something for all 32 teams to play for...... unlike the current system where the top 10/32 teams have nothing to play for in the final two months because they've already clinched a playoff spot or are about to, the bottom 10/32 teams have nothing to play for because they're eliminated or about to be, and the middle 12/32 is where all the intrigue is. The NHL's regular season boils down to what's happening in the MIDDLE of the standings, with no regard to the top or bottom. Plus, there's no benefit to finishing at the top. There is however, a tangible benefit to finishing at the bottom: the draft lottery. So basically, why try? (I'm still trying to wrap my head around Montreal's W-L record. They had 1 more win than Vancouver.)

My theory is, since the regular season (in the NHL) means nothing, then why not just let all the teams in? If the Montreal Canadiens with their 24-32 record (the worst in NHL history for any playoff team I'm sure) can make the playoffs, then why shouldn't the Vancouver Canucks be in the playoffs? They deserve to be there just as much as Montreal does. 50 points is 9 less than Montreal but only 1 less win.

Why bother? Why does the NHL have a regular season? It's 100% meaningless. 56 (normally 82) exhibition games of nothing so that -9 teams with 24-32 records can make the playoffs. Maybe the NHL should stop pretending to care about the standings and just have the 32-team, 5-round playoffs that we all know they want. Start the playoffs in October. Make every series a best-of-21. Five rounds @ 21 games each = 105 games. Charge full playoff revenue for every game. Then have the losing teams enter a relegation round where they play for the #1 draft pick. Teams that lose in round 1 play for the #1 pick in another tournament that will run alongside the playoffs. Teams that lose in round 2 will play for the #2 pick, and so on.

Is there such a thing as a Leafs fan that isn't disgruntled?