John Spano will save the Islanders.

On a more serious note, the Islanders should have never moved to Brooklyn. Plus the new arena is terrible since several seats have obstructed views. The franchise should move back to where it actually comes from.

It's the same for the Kanata Senators (and the Glendale Coyotes for that matter). Move downtown! It's a pain in the ass to get to a Sens game. I have to leave from Gatineau around 5 PM to be on time for a 7:30 PM game and I'm not back home before midnight which is quite exhausting on a weekday. Even if you come from downtown Ottawa, it's still at least a forty-five minute ride to Kanata if there isn't too much traffic. Plus the Tired Canadiens Center is in the middle of nowhere since there is nothing around the arena. That's absolutely terrible. I hope they will build a new arena next to the Canadian War Museum as soon as possible. I'm sure more people would attend their games if the arena were downtown, especially on weekdays. Things work much better in Montreal and Toronto where you can take the metro and get immediately inside the arena without waiting eternally and battling minus thirty degrees outside before you get past security checks.

On another note, I'm not the biggest fan of old teams coming back from the grave. The Hartford Whalers were a small franchise back then and if they came back there would maybe be a boom over the first few years and then the attendance stats would go down rapidly and history would repeat itself. A team like this simply doesn't have any future. Okay, it wouldn't be worse than the Carolina Hurricanes or the Florida Panthers but it wouldn't make much sense to move a team from a market with the lowest attendance stats to a market with the second lowest attendance stats in Hartford.

In Quebec's case, a return is already much more realistic even though I despise their conservative fans who even put their toddlers in No-Dicks jerseys even though they were toddlers themselves when the franchise was moved. I don't need another religious hype around a hockey team in Quebec. I'm not a fan of people who keep living in the past by any means necessary either. On the other side, I must honestly admit that a rivalry between Montreal and Quebec would still be a nice thing and that I would certainly go to Quebec City's Videotron Center to watch them play the Sens.

This doesn't really mean anything, but one of my hobbies is to play Be A GM mode in the various NHL games and either take a bad team to make them good or fantasy draft a random one to see what I can build. One of my most memorable was a ten year stint with a fantasy drafted Buffalo. I took Ovechkin with a top ten pick and filled the roster out with mostly young guys who I knew would grow well since I've just done this so many times and know who is worth it in the long run. Had a slow start and missed the playoffs three of the first four years, netting a top five pick in one of those, then made the playoffs four years in a row. Lost twice in the first round, twice in the Conference Final (to Toronto every single time, oddly enough (Tavares is a fucking monster in NHL 15)). The last one was especially heartbreaking because it went to Double OT in Game 7, fizzling out in a season where Ovie buried 66 goals and took home the Rocket with a twelve goal margin. The next year I finally made it to the promised land and won the Stanley Cup, sweeping San Jose for a decisive win!... the year after Ovechkin retired.

The point is that the Caps won't win this year because even in fucking fantasy land Ovechkin will never, ever, ever win the Cup, much less make it to the Final.

Very true. The team doesn't belong in Brooklyn. Terrible sightlines aside, it was clear from the start that the Isles would be viewed as little more than a pain-in-the-ass interloper in what's primarily the Brooklyn Nets' home. It's a shame Wang and politicians of Long Island had to pull their little cheapout standoff until the Nassau Coliseum became virtually uninhabitable.



Agreed! I'm very much looking forward to there actually being an NHL team in Ottawa



You do grasp the irony of those words coming from a supporter of Ottawa sports teams?



Politics in here? Come on man, that's what the FFA thread is for!

Classy.

How dare people like things!

Also:

Liking things is fine but liking things from the past and desperately hoping that they will come back and getting disappointed year after year after year is fatal. Forcing your kids who can't even cherish the memories from the past to believe the same thing surely doesn't make them happy either. Putting hundreds of millions of dollars into a stadium that won't ever be used accurately is also debatable.

Sevezhavnost, I'm not talking about politics. I'm talking about religion. And I'm only talking about it because I personally know this type of hockey fans who worship their teams in such extreme ways. Your example about the Senators is actually a good point, however this team has been an original member of the NHL and multiple Stanley Cup winner so it made sense to bring them back. Now, I don't need a comeback of the Nordiques, the Whalers and numerous other teams from the past that didn't leave their mark on history.

You know, a strong argument could be made for the exact opposite. I mean, the Senators have been my team for my whole life, and I love the name. I'm also a history nut so I enjoy talking about Ottawa's 9 or 10 or 11 Stanley Cup victories. That said, back when the NHL was taking expansion applicants, yes Ottawa was extremely enthusiastic about getting a team; but to be honest the old Senators left in 1934. "Bringing back the Senators" per se, only appealed to a few hockey archaeologists like me, and the geriatric community who might (or might not) still remember those days.

On the other hand, despite your contention that these teams "made no mark on history", many people has fond memories of the Quebec Nordiques. And Winnipeg Jets for that matter. The merchandise is already there, even with the nu-Jets changing the uniforms, and fans can already feel linked a good nostalgic pride by retiring jerseys of Peter Stastny, Michel Goulet, Thomas Steen and Dale Hawerchuk.

PS Hitting up the Videotron Centre for a Sens-Nords game would be coming full circle for me. The first Sens game I went to as a kid, that was the matchup. Alexandre Daigle scored a hat trick, but Quebec whopped us 11-4. In the future rematch, Quebec will be the crappy expansion team

Nice, I do the same thing re: Be A GM mode! Funny that the Caps/Ovi can't do shit in virtual reality, either. There must be some bad juju in Washington.

Aw crud. Here I was happily thinking the Canadiens would sleep through their bye week, while Ottawa made up that 6pt. gap. Apparently, Montreal has instead noticed the Sens in their rear-view, and realized that objects in mirror are closer than they appear. So they snap up Claude friggin' Julien! (Also doesn't help that Ottawa's first extra game is against the damn Sabres, who seemingly can't beat anyone except us.)

I was expecting Therrien to be fired but not during our bye week! If the Habs were to lose their next 3 or 4 games, it would had been less surprising. I guess they really wanted to get Claude, who's by far the best francophone coach on the market and as far as I'm concerned, in the top 3 overall. He's a much better motivator and strategist than Therrien is. I'm happy we got him.

There's a plethora of rumours about why Therrien was let go including a possible schism with superstar Carey Price but for me, it really is that his coaching was becoming tiresome for his vétérans and predictable for the other teams. This is a welcome change and hopefully Bergevin will manage to get a top 6 forward to help us. I would see Duchesne with the team.

Nevermind Montréal for a second, I'm quite happy that the Leafs are having a good season, they deserve to make the playoffs and Matthews and Marner are super impressive. They need some defense though but I'm not sure trading William Nylander is the best move to get some. I would really like to see them lose against Montréal in the playoffs!

Y'all keep your hands off those Leafs! If there's a lineup of teams who want to slap Toronto in a playoff series, us Senators get first dibs. Patrick Lalime must be avenged!

You guys will need to win the division first and with Julien in charge, no way it will happen! I want the TOR/MTL rivalry to start again. The Boston one has been boring since they just can't win against us in the playoffs. Things has been pretty interesting against Tampa though.

It's possible that the Canadiens will face the Sens in the first round of the playoffs. That's definitely the most interesting Canadian rivalry right now. The Leafs are a team for the future. Talking about the Leafs, I will attend the game between the Sens and the Leafs at Air Canada Center in Toronto this Saturday. I can't wait to go there! It'll be my first time at Air Canada Center.

I'm not surprised Therrien had to go but the moment is indeed strange since Montreal is still leading their division and it's very likely they will make the playoffs this year. There was no immediate danger like last year. I agree that Julien is a better coach than Therrien. However, once again, I'm not a fan of bringing coaches back who have already been with a team and weren't particularly successful in the past. Is Vigneault going to come back after Julien? Some fresh blood would have been a much better option in my book. I think one could have given Patrick Roy a chance, to just give one example. He would have shaken things up a little bit. I know many people hate him but I actually like him.

I've heard several rumors that Price had issues with Therrien. If that were true, he should pay attention to realize that nobody is bigger than the team. I hope Price doesn't believe the French-Canadian media that don't stop calling him the best hockey player of the world. Price is an outstanding player without a doubt but he isn't the best and hasn't led his team to an important title yet. He's got to keep his feet on the ground. Making sure everybody is keeping his feet on the ground is also a captain's job. Pacioretty doesn't seem to have this type of personality at all. The Montreal Canadiens need a much stronger personality as a captain if they want to win a Stanley Cup.

Tony, it looks more likely that the Atlantic Division winner will face the high wild card, who will probably come from the Metro. So any combination of Montreal, Ottawa or Toronto, at least in the first round, would be the divisional 2-3 matchup.

kluseba, Patrick Roy would have been a very interesting choice! Imagine the uproar if he ever left Price in net for 9 goals But I guess Bergevin thought the Habs needed a change but not a total upheaval type of change. So he went with the safer pick Claude.

Patrick Roy is perhaps the best goalie ever but he's a complete prick and possibly don't even want the job anyway. Julien isn't only the safer choice, he was the best one. He improved a lot since he was in Montréal (it was a while ago anyway, 2003-2006!) and it's not like there's a big pool of coaches to pick from.

I really don't like the wild card concept but yeah, this makes sense.

Even with the Bruins kinda sorta getting their shit together now, we still lack the depth to make a serious playoff run this year. Julien employs a "cycle the puck back to the point" sort of offense that just didn't play out late in his Boston tenure, but could probably have a lot of success in Montreal due to y'alls depth at center and overall stronger defense.

Honestly though, I want to see Minnesota do some damage in the postseason. I'd wanna see a Canadian team win it all just to see what the winning city looks like during the celebration. Yes, even Montreal.

I'd like the Wild to play in the conference finals for sure! Maybe a Koivu can actually win a cup ahaha.

That's a pretty good bet, unless they run up against Chicago. Other than that, the Minnesota Wild are like the Dos Equis guy: "I don't always make the playoffs. But when I do, I prefer the later rounds." They are 3-for-7 all-time at getting past the first round, which is a better percentage than most teams.

About the wild card concept... meh. As a CFL fan, I say obsession with having the better teams make the playoffs is overrated! Look at our sub-.500 Ottawa Redblacks winning the Grey Cup I'd love it if the NHL went to full divisional playoffs, adding in an altered version of the CFL's crossover rule. IE that there would be a crossover playoff for a superior 5th-place team to usurp somebody's 4th divisional playoff spot.

I think the wildcard format would work way better if there was an actual wildcard round, like a best-of-3 or even a single game. Implementing that would probably mean other drastic changes would have to be made to the existing playoff format (division winners get a bye, maybe only the top 6 teams from each conference are guaranteed a playoff spot, etc) that just wouldn't fly.

I like your idea. There is currently nothing particularly "wild" about the wild card teams and their path through the playoffs. Adding a round (even a baseball-style shorter series or single game) would fix that. How could that be done while also incorporating a division winners' bye though? Seems it would have to grossly increase the total number of playoff participants. You suggest shrinking it, but the owners would never sacrifice their chance at selling playoff tickets.

Now that I think about it, you're right. I totally disregarded the points system...I think tight points races to get the bottom spots in the conference may be "wildcard enough", but seeing a shorter, extra round would be neat. Maybe have the bottom five from each conference be eliminated from playoff contention, then the 7-10 seeds play a game or best-of-three to determine who makes it into the normal playoff format? I dunno

EDIT: Las Vegas' addition fucks my math up, damn it...need another new franchise!

I think a mini tournament between the 8th, 9th and 10th seeds would be cool but still, there's so many fucking games during the season that it's unlikely to ever happen. I think the best thing would be a 3 out of 5 for the first round, this would help the players stay healthy. A team who wins the cup plays so many games and they start the next season with bruised bodies.

The first practice of Claude Julien in Montréal vs a game in Carolina!

A shorter first round would be a great idea, good call. Also, I'm hoping the media in Montreal doesn't run Claude out of town in a year, need more scrappy heartbreaking Bruins/Habs games but also

I'd say if the Islanders leave NYC to move them to Green Bay for personally selfish reasons but the Resch is a pretty small building and I would hate to see a rivalry with the Gamblers (the USHL team in the building). And Milwaukee is too close to Chicago so a NHL tem there probably won't happen either.

Been into NBA when I was a teen/adolescent 15-20 years ago but lost interest at some point. For the first time since then, I just checked the NBA standings. Clippers ahead of Lakers? Does not compute.

The Sens tasted first place tonight... for about 20 minutes. Can't count on the friggin' Rangers to do anything useful, as they lost to Montreal Ah well, we'll be back soon!

This year is the first time I've decided to keep up with a full season of it. It's been very interesting this year, to say the least. Lots of drama.
And yeah, the Clippers have actually been pretty good the last few years, although they've never made a deep playoff run. And the Lakers are kinda not good these days, lol. The Kobe Bryant farewell tour went on wayyyyy too long.

I had a real blast at Air Canada Centre last Saturday. Leafs fans were surprisingly passive and quiet while I kept cheering for my team. Met a few nice hockey fans though and had some interesting chats. Sens won the game six to three but it was a really tight game with many ups and downs. Things are looking great this season!

Hehe yeah, they get a bad rap but Leafs fans can occasionally be civilised



Interesting... Milwaukee is farther from Chicago than the 50 miles that the NHL concedes as a team's territorial zone. I wouldn't mind promoting the Admirals up to the big league; while the Isles wind up in Quebec. Whatever happens, I just want the 32nd team - whenever that happens - to balance the divisions and conferences. Milwaukee's a nice option, and if I may toss out a curveball, so is Oklahoma City.

That 32nd team needs to get here yesterday because I'm still salty about the realignment all these years later, even if the uneven conferences benefit my team. It's retarded and I'll never stop hating it.

Coulda just moved Winnipeg to the Northwest, Minnesota to the Central, and Nashville to the Southeast. Boom, done, no worthwhile rivalries broken up BUT NO LETS TOTALLY STACK THE DIVISIONS INCORRECTLY AND BONE THE FLORIDA TEAMS AND BREAK UP CHICAGO AND DETROIT YEAH THAT'S A TOTALLY LOGICAL AND FAIR IDEA NYUK NYUK NYUK

No I'll never let this go, it's severely hindered my desire to watch hockey.

So, the reverse, more or less, of what the NFL did when they went to 32 teams in 2002?

Yes the NFL's Great Jiggering of 2002 was an example of realignment done right! Mich better than how the hockey geniuses have left us with cartographic deformities like the Northeast-and-a-half, er sorry, "Atlantic Division".

I've often wondered what a football-style arrangement would look like in a future, balanced 32 team NHL. Factoring in the sad demise of the Islanders, and assuming the next two new teams (incl. the relocated Isles) would be Quebec and Oklahoma City*, I come up with this:

*This would work fine if the new western team went to Houston rather than OKC too.

Tampa, Florida, Carolina, Nashville - call this the Give a Fuck? Division.
Philadelphia, Washington, Pittsburgh, Columbus
Buffalo, New Jersey, New York Rangers, Boston
Quebec, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto - yeah it pretty much guarantees that no more than two eastern Canadian teams would make the playoffs. What can you do?

Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota, Winnipeg - there ya go, BastardHead
StLouis, Colorado, Dallas, Oklahoma City
Anaheim, Arizona, Los Angeles, Las Vegas
San Jose, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary

I haven't been keeping up but if the Islanders really are on the way out I suppose that makes things interesting. I really don't see an Oklahoma City team ever happening. I know Bettman is hell bent on making hockey an "American Game" but throwing a team in an area completely dominated by college football seems like a fucking disaster. Give the team to Seattle or something halfway logical.

I tried doing my own NFL style realignment but it's hard to do without breaking up at least one great rivalry. I dunno, just bring Chicago and Detroit back dammit. Bettman was so worried about sucking Pittsburgh's dick that he blew up one of the all time greats. Which is weird because Chicago gets about just as much favoritism nowadays.

As it is, Seattle would be another Barclays Center fiasco, with an arena designed for basketball sightlines. Though Seattle gets mentioned all the time, any potential Seattle NHL investors have consistently dragged their feet on making their arena hockey-friendly. I don't really understand why, but the multi-use buildings only work one way: you can add a basketball team into a hockey-configured stadium, but the reverse is a mess.

The Oklahoma City Blazers led the Central League in attendance every year from 1992-2009. I wouldn't dismiss the town's hockey fanship so easily! Granted, that was a fourth-tier minor pro league, so it only took the Blazers a nightly average of 9100 fans to be #1 for those seventeen straight years. But you could also look at that the other way: 9100 people would show up to watch such illustrious opponents as the El Paso Buzzards and other assorted Pirates of Po-Dunk. How many more would come out for a big league team?

Dumbass proposal to shorten extra-innings baseball games by having each team start with a runner on second base.
http://www.dailytoreador.com/sports/opi ... f27df.html

I say, if you don't like a super long-ass baseball game, maybe it's not the game that's the problem. Maybe you just don't like baseball.

Apparently it's an experiment that's about to get tried out:

http://www.milb.com/news/article.jsp?ym ... =news_milb

Sounds like the dumb way college football handles overtime.

This must be how hockey fans felt when they introduced the shootout (I didn't get into it until the season after the lockout so I don't know)

The MLB has been doing pretty poorly ratings-wise the past few years so it doesn't surprise me that they are looking into different ways of making the game less boring. I'm not sure there is much than can do about low viewership without radically changing the game though. It's becoming a generational thing and young kids are gravitating much more towards basketball and less towards baseball as of recent.

Some other recent changes in baseball are good, because they've addressed an actual problem: too many pauses. That's why limiting the number and length of managers' visits to the pitcher was a good idea. Cheapening overtime by handing out halfway to a run, does not fix any real issue imo. But if enough people feel that baseball can be too long, then okay, let there be ties.

I am so beyond sad that Nurmagomedov couldn't make weight for his bout with Tony Ferguson. I've been waiting since 2015 to see those two go at it and this is the third time their fight has been cancelled.

Dude...I was so hyped for this fight and couldn't believe it when I read it was cancelled. Hopefully this gets rescheduled sooner rather than later. I'm pretty convinced that Ferguson's movement and balance will make it hard for Khabib to take him down, and he can pick him apart on the feet. If Khabib does ever get on top though, I don't think Ferguson's craftiness will really matter, because Khabib's top game is unreal. At this point McGregor will probably fight Mayweather before these two guys fight, though.

At least there are a few other really interesting fights on this card, but that news was devastating. It's unfortunate how often this happens. I was super excited to see Cain's rematch against Werdum at UFC 207 a few months back, but that got pulled right before the fights too.