A fun little idea I had about the rest of the season...

[ZP9]

I was kind of bored last night, so I was thinking of ways to make hockey cool if the season was salvaged for this year. Granted, there just being hockey would be cool, but I thought this would be neat as well.

You don't play any regular season games, you toss all 30 teams into a playoff for the Stanley Cup. You also scrap conferences and just let them play each other. Here is how it would work.

#1. Conferences are tossed out the window. Seedings are based on total points from last season. In the event of a tie in points, then you go with Most Wins first, and then Better Goals For/Against ratio. Those are the only two criteria I needed to use based on last seasons results.

#2. #1 and #2 Get a first round bye. Your first round is a best of 5 Series. Then you have it widdled down to your 16 teams and you go best of 7 from there on out.

This is what round 1 would look like.

#1 Detroit Bye
#2 Tampa Bay Bye
#3 San Jose vs. #30 Pittsburgh
#4 Boston vs. #29 Chicago
#5 Toronto vs. #28 Washington
#6 Ottawa vs. # 27 Columbus
#7 Vancouver vs. #26 Phoenix
#8 Philadelphia vs. #25 NY Rangers
#9 New Jersey vs. #24 Florida
#10 Colorado vs. #23 Carolina
#11 Dallas vs. #22 Anaheim
#12 Calgary vs. #21 Atlanta
#13 Montreal vs. #20 Los Angelas
#14 St. Louis vs. #19 Minnesota
#15 NY Islanders vs. #18 Buffalo
#16 Nashville vs. #17 Edmonton


I just thought it would be cool to see and might generate excitement from places that are never in the playoffs anymore...might get some first round upsets as well, which is always cool.

 

[langway05]

Shawn

Interesting idea!

#5 Toronto vs. #28 Washington

I'd be more than happy to see this match up!

One thing though!

Seeing as they'd be going straight to the playoffs! I'm of the opinion that the Bye would work against ya! The reasoning would be that as you play! You as a team get better. Whereas, a team that only practises will need time to gel!

Just my two cents thrown into the fray!

Brian

 

[ZP9]

You bring up a good point. I'd say have each team play 5-10 tune up games before starting the playoffs. I was also thinking they should have a bit of a training camp as well.

 

[will-411]

Neat the way most of them end up geographically close,

though the travel for these four would be MURDER!

#3 San Jose vs. #30 Pittsburgh
#10 Colorado vs. #23 Carolina
#12 Calgary vs. #21 Atlanta
#13 Montreal vs. #20 Los Angelas

And I'm sorry, but my playoffs refuse to include the Bluejackets. I don't care if Nash and Zherdev play there! The world will end the season the Bluejackets make the playoffs...

Cory

 

[penguinfan]

At this point if the season was salvaged i would say play 40 games or less...either way the pens would not fair too well with that first round match up

 

[odjickfan]

though the travel for these four would be MURDER!

#13 Montreal vs. #20 Los Angelas

Cory

they did it in 1993

 

[WW2H]

that would be different, i think it would be really interesting

 

[kmitchel]

Honestly, if anything, i'd suggest only 8 teams make the playoffs this year (4 from each conference, 3 division winners, 1 wild card) but if they did it this way - the second round following this method COULD be juicy

Vancouver vs Colorado

and some rematches from last years playoffs

NY Islanders vs Tampa Bay
St Louis vs San Jose
New Jersey vs Philly
Detroit vs Nashville
Boston vs Montreal

I'm all for it!

Kevin