The Bruins game against the new Winnipeg Jets just started a few minutes ago. I fear this game a little bit for a number of reasons. Sure they haven't lost a game in regulation since October, but last night they played a great game against the top team in the East, Pittsburgh, and now for the second half of the back to back they get the somewhat lowlier Jets. It's a pretty obvious let down game. Also, Rask is in net and while I have faith in him, I have a lot more faith in Tim "The Man" Thomas. Now I find out that Tyler Seguin skipped a team breakfast today and has earned himself a benching for breaking a team rule. Not good, Tyler. For you or for the team tonight.
Still though... it's sure nice to see the NHL in Winnipeg again, isn't it?
How about that realignment they announced yesterday? I like it. I honestly don't care what they do so long as we remain in the same division (or conference, as they will call it next year) as Montreal and Toronto and even Buffalo. The idea of the Northeastern teams being in the same "conference" as the two Florida teams is... well... weird, but not a bad thing. I think it's great that each conference will hang on to the major rivalries, and most of the teams will be within the same time zone so fans in the East won't have to stay up late for quite as many West coast games. I really don't care that much about playing home and home against every team in the league. I'm one of those people who favors divisional games over non-divisional games, but then again I'm not a season ticket holder.
They haven't announced the plan for seeding the last two rounds of the playoffs. I am 100% in favor of seeding the third round by points with the winner of each of the four conferences having a chance to play against any of the other conferences. I hope they don't separate the conferences into East/West pairs. I want the change to meet New York, or Detroit, or Vancouver in the finals. I want the conference champ with the most points in the regular season to play the conference champ with the fewest points in the regular season in the third round.
A lot of people are bitching about the two conferences made up of current Eastern teams being made up of seven teams each while the Western conferences are made up of eight teams each. I personally don't care. It gives the league a degree of flexibility, and I see a couple of quiet conspiracies in it. First, I think this pretty much guarantees that Phoenix as a franchise is toast. I bet they will be in Quebec City next year. When that happens the league just has to add them to the Northeast + Florida conference and no one bats an eye. After that, the league is free to expand by two teams. One in the East and one in the West. Nice, huh? What they should do is contract the league down to 28 teams, but they are never going to do that. So my guess is Hamilton, Ontario will get a team. If not Hamilton, then somewhere in the greater Toronto area. Out West is harder to guess. Kansas City wants a team. So does Las Vegas. I don't see Vegas ever getting a team, but who knows. There's also places like Seattle and Portland to consider, and has anyone ever thought about San Francisco?
The only other thing that I want to see happen with the realignment is...
Can we be the Adams division again?
Please?
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