The NHL Thread

Well now, the lockout is over (About damn time!) and the first week had passed. Some stuff has happened and for the time being the landscape looks different in this abridged season.

Right now, the Blackhawks and Sharks are undefeated and they're the division leaders in Central and Pacific, respectively. The Senators and Bruins are in a dogfight with the Senators downright looking good and Craig Anderson seems to have turned a corner. The Kings stumbled a bit, but they managed to get 5 points the last 3 games since their 0-2-0 start. Blues still look mighty good right now, Tampa Bay has a nice start and the Devils have gotten points without a loss in regulation time.

Oh, and the Canucks are a bit irregular right now. It seems to me that despite the fact that it's been sliced in half and there's no Winter Classic, this is going to be a fun season.

I'm pretty sure that this thread's title limits its participants so that I don't really expect anyone without prior knowledge about the NHL to join it. Still, it would be nice to have some of those concepts opened up a bit. I know what I want to know about why it took so long for the season to kick off, but maybe someone else doesn't? If you could write a brief summary of what happened, that'd be great.

I like watching ice hockey, but I only watch international tournaments: the World Championship, the Olympics and sometimes the Euro Hockey Tour. I'd like to know more about the NHL, though. I don't really know very well what the deal with the Conferences is. How do they work?

To summarize, the lockout was a big mess. There was a lot of talk about the revenue balance between the teams and the players, details about the CBA for which both sides (the NHLPA and Gary Bettman) were playing hardball with each other and many players went to the various international leagues to prevent rust in their skills.

A settlement has been reached in a miraculous manner and hopefully these next 10 years will give the league the needed time to work out the CBA. I don't think they should be keen on getting another lockout anytime soon.

Just like with the NFL, the NHL has 2 conferences with 3 divisions each: East and West and they were formerly known as the Campbell and Wales conferences until around the turn of the new century. Division champions are given the top 3 seeds with runner-ups gaining the other 3 seeds and it turns into a dogfight when it comes achieving the 7th and 8th seeds.

The seedings are determined with the number of wins (Obviously, though victories in regulation time have just a bit more relevance), amount of points achieved, regulation and overtime losses, head-to-head match-ups, divisional match-ups, conference and interconference match-ups. Everything comes into play, especially on seed positions from 5th to 8th.

edited 31st Jan '13 10:11:30 AM by AndroidChaos

The Finnish SM-Liiga benefited from having NHL players available for a while, as I'm sure most European leagues did. I've seen some rankings of the different leagues based on overall quality, and our premier league has sometimes been ranked at #3 in the world, after the NHL and the KHL. But I suppose that's off-topic.

I'd like to know more about the Conferences. If I'm not mistaken the idea is that the first part of a season is when the teams in the Divisions play each other. The top teams then get to play against the top teams from other Divisions in the same Conference. After that the top teams in each Conference play against each other for the Stanley Cup.

Is there a system by which teams can be relegated to lower leagues and promoted from lower leagues to the NHL? In football (except in the US - and I suppose I should've said "soccer," as this thread is about an American league) the second-most exciting part of each season is the battle at the bottom of the league against relegation.

I don't know about entire teams moving up, but I do know there is minor league hockey which is basically acts as a feeder to the NHL.

Also I am unreasonably excited about how the Sharks are undefeated all the way into February.

I thought Americans weren't big on promotion/relegation. Seems that I was right. I already knew you don't do that with soccer, so I'm not surprised.

Anyway, I'd like to know more about how the season continues from the point where every team in a division has already played every other team in it. (I assume they play each game twice - so that both teams get to play at home.)

Yeah, teams in pro sports are pretty locked down tight. I don't know what the process is for starting a new team in any of the big 4 sports since it hasn't even happened in my recent memory. I think one of the reasons no one tries is because usually the next widely acknowledged league down is just collegiate level, and you can't really bump those guys up.

Regarding how things play out, I haven't picked up on those particular rules yet, but season games aren't necessarily one home game for each team. For example, the San Jose Sharks only played the Philadelphia Flyers once last year, though I'm guessing this is because of different divisions. IIRC, within a division, teams do play each other twice.

And the thing is that just like with the NFL, MLB and NBA, one team doesn't tangle with all of the squads in the NHL every year and there's always division rivalries and teams with history between each other (Some of them not very pleasant like Philadelphia vs Pittsburgh), so these two factors come into play when it comes to the schedule because they become some of the top match-ups every week.

Well, after 7 games the Sharks are the only team undefeated

And it's awesome.

It's really good to see, considering I'm from around there.

I don't really have a favourite team, but as a Finn I suppose I should support Anaheim Ducks (like most Finns do - mostly because many Finnish players have peaked at that club) or Minnesota Wild (because some Finnish players are approaching their peak there right now.)

You don't have to limit yourself to one team, though you can have a No. 1. My favorite teams are:

East

• Boston Bruins
• New York Rangers
• Washington Capitals
• Pittsburgh Penguins

West

• Los Angeles Kings
• Chicago Blackhawks
• Detroit Red Wings
• Nashville Predators
• St.Louis Blues

My favorite teams are Winnipeg and Tampa Bay. But I also Like the Flames and Sharks.

sharks are no longer undefeated :(

It had to happen, but DAYAM! The Canadiens are playing great, really great.

the Sharks have been fantastic with the power play kills, too. that 4 on 3 was a nail biter.

Teemu Selänne has scored his 666th NHL goal. I have to say that's a damn fine achievement. Even at his age he's still a beast.

edited 3rd Feb '13 9:41:33 AM by BestOf

Any picks on who'll make the playoffs?

The Sharks will make the play offs then choke in the first round. Like every year

:(

The Caps look absolutely terrible. Having seen it myself, they lack something and it's being apparently that this isn't the same team we've been looking at the last 4 years. This will be a tough first season on the bench for Adam Oates. They need a lot of improvements.

How are the Calgary Flames doing? I saw a live match of theirs once in their stadium/rink/whatever you call the place where they do the ice hockey thing and it was BRILLIANT!!!

Wikipedia says they have 4 points from 6 games. So they're not doing very well right now. (Similar to football, you get three points for a regulation time win and nothing if you lose. Ice hockey doesn't like draws, so every game can go into extra time or even penalties. If it goes into extra time the winner gets 2 points and the loser gets 1.)

According to that article, this season will be reduced to 48 games: the divisions plus the conference play-offs and that's it.

edited 4th Feb '13 2:47:50 PM by BestOf

To be more precise, the draws were abolished some years back and both teams gain a point each once they reach overtime and beyond. If one wins in OT or the shootout, they gain that extra point.

When the playoffs start, there's continuous overtime with 5 on 5 and it goes on until someone wins it. The difference here is that regular season overtime consists of 5 minutes in 4 on 4 action for the sake of getting things done quicker, so you have to have the right lines that will give you a chance to win. On playoffs OT, you play the full 20 minutes in 5 on 5 until there's a clear winner.

edited 4th Feb '13 8:29:32 PM by AndroidChaos

Well the undefeated streak had to end some time.

edited 4th Feb '13 9:49:36 PM by NoChorus