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The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

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Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

This is true, but then doesn't this debunk the theory that more teams feel like they have a shot of cracking the top 8?

Not exactly, because it keeps everyone within firing range of each other. Look how the points ended up last year.

Check the Eastern Conference where the playoff race was a lot tighter. Carolina was 6th with 97 points whereas Buffalo was 10th with 91. Montreal and Florida both had 93 points but Montreal won the tiebreaker with Florida so they got in.

In the West, the difference between 6th and 10th was four points. Minnesota, for how inconsistent and bad as they were last year were two points from the playoffs. As it was, Edmonton was six points out of eighth in 11th place.

While the teams at the top half of the race are generally well separated, the teams fighting for the playoffs are all in tight. The points welfare thing creates a nicely muddled middle ground while the top and bottom are pretty well set aside.
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

Not exactly, because it keeps everyone within firing range of each other. Look how the points ended up last year.

All true and I remember this coming up near the end of the regular season, but I also remember being said that given the system it's extremely hard for teams to make up ground. But I suppose it's possible as you say to give a false sense of hope and keep more fans engaged until the end.
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

Is there anywhere that keeps tabs on the following stats?
Regulation Wins - Regulation Losses - OT Wins - OT Losses - SO Wins - SO Losses?

I tried to sort through the NHL's stats, but they don't neatly provide those stats, and Yahoo was useless.
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

All true and I remember this coming up near the end of the regular season, but I also remember being said that given the system it's extremely hard for teams to make up ground. But I suppose it's possible as you say to give a false sense of hope and keep more fans engaged until the end.
Exactly. The same system that keeps everyone bunched together makes it more difficult than normal to leapfrog those in front of you. It used to be about winning two points. In some ways, it's now more important to keep the other team from getting one. Although that's only relevant in divisional and conference games, not intra-conference matchups.
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

So, if you're going to line up a guy for a big open-ice check, make sure one of your guys isn't following close behind ;)

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Apparently Florida Panther players are colorblind...
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

Jovanovski suspended 2 games for this hit:
<iframe width="480" height="289" frameborder="0" src="http://www.nhl.tv/team/embed.jsp?catid=-3&id=53825"></iframe>
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

Jovanovski suspended 2 games for this hit:
<iframe width="480" height="289" frameborder="0" src="http://www.nhl.tv/team/embed.jsp?catid=-3&id=53825"></iframe>

I know I'm a homer here, but he should have gotten more. I think he had plenty of time to realize where his forearm was with respect to his head.
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

Jovanovski suspended 2 games for this hit:
<iframe width="480" height="289" frameborder="0" src="http://www.nhl.tv/team/embed.jsp?catid=-3&id=53825"></iframe>

Couple things I noticed:

1. Refs looking right at it. No call. Bad for refs.

2. Ebbett skating into the zone with his head down. Bad for Ebbett.

#2 doesnt really matter that much because whether his head was up or not, it was still a penalty. But his head being up changes the hit from being just an illegal hit with large injury potential to just another 2 (or more) minute penalty.

I can't remember if it was NHL on the Fly or Versus Hockey Central that had a guy on that said that there aren't enough players who know the basic safety of keeping the head up.

OH! And in other news, Steve Downie had another cheap hit. A hit from behind driving the player face first into the boards in front of his bench. I don't know if an injury occurred. I think he was far enough away from the boards so that only the top of his helmet hit the dasher but still.

He's still the cheapest player in the NHL and I can't believe he's still playing.
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

New coach, new game plan, lots of new players, same old "rely on Lundqvist to steal points" Rangers. :rolleyes:
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

I guess I didn't need to bother watching the Wild-Avs game, since it was virtually identical to the Blues-Wings game I watched earlier.
 
Re: The 2009-10 NHL regular season thread: Slightly less meaningless hockey

This was too funny not to pass on...

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