Hockey Trade Rumors

Okay, I started writing a comment on one of the trade deadline threads and I think it should be a discussion unto itself. Picture this, let’s say you’re a Rangers fan, you finish with the 8th most points in the East this year, let’s say 6 points more then any team in the South East division, and you don’t get to make the playoffs because the division leader from the Southeast gets bumped up to 3rd place.Its a terrible rule! Division leaders automatically seeded 1,2,3 ??? How is that fair at all? I checked the final standings on NHL.com dating back to 2001-02. Not a single year did the top 3 teams in each conference have the top 3 records in each conference. 3 out of 5 years its happened in the West. and not once in the East, has it worked out.

Normally its not such a huge deal. Its usually the 3rd and 4th best teams getting bumped down to 4th and 5th. Or maybe like last year, the top 2 teams are both from the same division so the second best team is bumped down to 4th. This is still a big problem because if you finish in 5th place, you have to face team #4 in the first round. Team #4 is actually in fact team #2!!!! If you finish in 6th, you get the winner of the weak division. So pretty much every year in the East the team that finishes in 6th has a big first round advantage over the team that finishes 5th. NOT FAIR!

Case and point:
Ottawa finished right behind Buffalo last year but got bumped to 4th thanks to the division rule. Pittsburgh finished in 5th and had to face a team statistically way tougher then the 6th and 7th seeded Rangers and Lightning. Had Pittsburgh had a worse regular season, they would have been “lucky” to get the 3rd place Thrashers in the first round (swept by the Rangers).

So usually, it mostly hurts the team slotted in 5th. However, this year, it could be way worse. Here’s a likely scenario for how this season will finish.

Let’s say for arguements sake that Ottawa stays in first, Pittsburgh stays in second, and so on. Imagine the final standings end up something like this (THIS IS NOT A PREDICTION, JUST AN EXAMPLE) :

1.Ottawa 109 pts
2.Pittsburgh 105 pts
3.Tampa Bay 87 pts
4.Montreal 100 pts
5.Philadelphia 99 pts
6.New Jersey 96 pts
7.Buffalo 92 pts
8.Boston 92 pts
9.NYR 91 pts
10.NYI 88 pts

Well, look at Tampa, 10th best points in the East and the lucky Devils get to face them in the first round. It doesn’t have to happen exactly like this, but you get the idea, and if it doesn’t happen this year (which it will) it will happen next year or the year after, etc. One of these days, a team finishing with the 9th or 10th, or 11th most points in a conference will get bumped right up to 3rd. Boooooo!!!!

By the way I picked Tampa, a team struggling in 15th in the East all year as my example for a reason. They’re weak division makes 3rd place very attainable right to the end of the year, even when 8th place is out of reach. Does that make even a little sense to anyone?

Comments, questions, any not agree with me?