# 2017 Stanley Cup Playoffs thread **URL:** \ **Category:** The Game Room\ **Created:** [April 11, 2017, 11:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278 "2017-04-11T23:57:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![StGermain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stgermain/32/2868_2.png) [@StGermain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/StGermain)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 2:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/21 "2017-04-16T02:54:29Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Don’t worry. The Blackhawks have this switch they turn on when the playoffs start. 2 down. Is that an Off switch? StG ---
**Author:** ![bobot](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bobot/32/21622_2.png) [@bobot](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bobot)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/22 "2017-04-16T03:04:32Z")
Blackhawks tonight played like they’d rather be at home with the season over. Looks like they’ll get their wish pretty soon. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 3:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/23 "2017-04-16T03:04:40Z")
Matt Calvert got a [1 game suspension](http://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/19167222/matt-calvert-columbus-blue-jackets-suspended-1-game-cross-check-pittsburgh-penguins-tom-kuhnhackl)for his hit on Tom Kuhnhackl last night. Apparently, they weren’t even going to suspend him at first – WTF? Luckily Kuhnhackl wasn’t hurt. ---
**Author:** ![ultimate11](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/49beb7/32.png) [@ultimate11](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ultimate11)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/24 "2017-04-16T03:33:21Z")
God, the Hawks are looking dreadful. 0-1 loss in the first game and now a 0-5 loss in the second. If they don’t get their head out of their asses by the third game, this round is over, and the Hawks better figure out the 2017-2018 season immediately. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/25 "2017-04-16T12:00:56Z")
> [@ultimate11](#): > > and the Hawks better figure out the 2017-2018 season immediately. There is not too much to figure out. Their core players are starting to wear down. Since 2010 Kane, Toews, Keith and Seabrook have played roughly 115 playoff games (that is 1.5 seasons worth of games) plus all the Olympic /World Cup games. Also, the salary cap hurts them. They can’t keep shaving down closer to the core and replace player with similar quality. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/26 "2017-04-16T15:21:54Z")
Well, I was at the Senators - Bruins game yesterday, and it was great. Unfortunately I drank just enough beer to fall asleep on the couch for the overtime periods of the Leafs and Caps. This is headed back to Toronto with the split. This could actually get real! Sent from my adequate mobile device using Tapatalk. ---
**Author:** ![Ike\_Witt](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ike_witt/32/283_2.png) [@Ike\_Witt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ike_Witt)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/27 "2017-04-16T18:02:17Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > This is headed back to Toronto with the split. > This could actually get real! I was amazed at how well the Leafs played in the first game and I figured that the Caps would snap out of it in game 2, but no. The Leafs are not getting intimidated by the better team. I still think the Caps will win but it is much, much closer than I expected. ---
**Author:** ![Tom\_Tildrum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/e95f7d/32.png) [@Tom\_Tildrum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tom_Tildrum)\ **Post date:** [April 16, 2017, 8:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/28 "2017-04-16T20:04:09Z")
> [@ultimate11](#): > > …and the Hawks better figure out the 2017-2018 season immediately. They can take a little time to play some golf with their friends on the Capitals. ---
**Author:** ![ThisSpaceForRent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/thisspaceforrent/32/345_2.png) [@ThisSpaceForRent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ThisSpaceForRent)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 4:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/29 "2017-04-17T04:33:58Z")
Blues up 3-0 on the Wild…life is temporarily good! ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/30 "2017-04-17T05:01:13Z")
I’m a Blackhawks fan and there’s nothing much to talk about there. I hope they wake up if it’s not too late already. My wife is Canadian so we watch all the Canadian teams as well. I have been pretty impressed with the Oilers so far. Connor McDavid is a joy to watch, they’re 100% on penalty kill through three game (plus two shorties), and fuck the Sharks. What’s not to love? ---
**Author:** ![Lance\_Turbo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lance_turbo/32/6156_2.png) [@Lance\_Turbo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lance_Turbo)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/31 "2017-04-17T05:09:50Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > Since 2010 Kane, Toews, Keith and Seabrook have played roughly 115 playoff games (that is 1.5 seasons worth of games) plus all the Olympic /World Cup games. Add Hossa and Hjarmalsson to this list. Hossa is somehow even in worse shape because he was on teams that went to the finals in both seasons preceding joining the Blackhawks in for the 2009-2010 season. He has played in an astonishing 146 playoff games in the last ten years. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/32 "2017-04-17T12:48:44Z")
> [@Ike\_Witt](#): > > I was amazed at how well the Leafs played in the first game and I figured that the Caps would snap out of it in game 2, but no. The Leafs are not getting intimidated by the better team. I still think the Caps will win but it is much, much closer than I expected. There aren’t any bad teams in the playoffs. If the Capitals were playing the Avalanche, well, sure, it’d be a miracle for Colorado to win. But the supposedly overmatched Leafs are not the Avalanche. They’re a legitimately good team. Anyone who thinks they’re sure of the results of a playoff series is a fool. A goalie had a good week, or a defenceman has a bad night, or a puck bounces this way rather than that, and boom, you’re reaching for your golf clubs. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 1:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/33 "2017-04-17T13:23:04Z")
What a disappointing series so far for Columbus. They were so good for most of the regular season and then hit a wall in the last 2 weeks. Looks like they just haven’t been able to regain themselves. And by the way, Stanley Cup seeding matchups make no sense to me. ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 1:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/34 "2017-04-17T13:39:29Z")
There IS a logic to it, I assure you. I can’t explain it, but someone tried to explain it to me once and I managed to get that there’s a system, it’s just too confusing to remember. It’s like reading the Wikipedia article on something complicated, like nuclear fission; you can tell people understand it, even if you can’t. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/35 "2017-04-17T15:06:46Z")
Well, I’m glad it’s just not me. It used to be so easy. Now we have: > [@](#): > > In the First Round, the division winner with the best record in each conference will be matched against the wild-card team with the lesser record; the wild card team with the better record will play the other division winner. > > The teams finishing second and third in each division will meet in the First Round within the bracket headed by their respective division winners. First-round winners within each bracket play one another in the Second Round to determine the four participants in the Conference Finals. > > Home-ice advantage through the first two rounds goes to the team that placed higher in the regular-season standings. In the Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Final, home-ice advantage goes to the team that had the better regular-season record – regardless of the teams’ final standing in their respective divisions. ---
**Author:** ![Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/a183cd/32.png) [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Barkis_is_Willin)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 3:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/36 "2017-04-17T15:35:50Z")
As a casual CBJ fan, this is the part that is frustrating and confusing. > [@](#): > > The teams finishing second and third in each division will meet in the First Round within the bracket headed by their respective division winners. Why would you match up the 2nd and 3rd team from their own divisions? Columbus and Pittsburgh both had better records (more points) than Boston and Ottawa, and yet they have to play each other. I’m just bitter that Columbus, as a city, was finally excited for their NHL franchise all season and now the playoffs are crap. ---
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 3:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/37 "2017-04-17T15:43:53Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > As a casual CBJ fan, this is the part that is frustrating and confusing. > > Why would you match up the 2nd and 3rd team from their own divisions? Columbus and Pittsburgh both had better records (more points) than Boston and Ottawa, and yet they have to play each other. > > I’m just bitter that Columbus, as a city, was finally excited for their NHL franchise all season and now the playoffs are crap. Columbus and Pittsburgh both had better records based on a regular season where they played more games against teams in their division than Boston and Ottawa’s. If you were to get rid of the current playoff system, where you have to win your division and then your conference to get to the final (which is very simple and straight-forward except for the wild card teams potentially crossing divisions-and I’d be fine with eliminating the wild card and making it just the four best teams per division), to make it fair you’d have to completely change how the regular season is scheduled. The only reason it seems unfair is because, based on their records, the Metro division teams seem so much stronger than the Atlantic. But then, so far in the playoffs, the Atlantic wild card team that crossed over to the Metro has a better record than Columbus, who is playing a team with a worse record. ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 4:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/38 "2017-04-17T16:39:51Z")
> [@ThisSpaceForRent](#): > > Blues up 3-0 on the Wild…life is temporarily good! That’s because the Blues have taken my advice to roll Jake Allen in bubble wrap and store him in a vault any time he isn’t actually on the ice, to keep him safe. If he should fall out of his zone for any reason, that’s the end of the playoff run. ---
**Author:** ![Rysto](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/ecccb3/32.png) [@Rysto](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rysto)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/39 "2017-04-17T17:05:00Z")
> [@Barkis\_is\_Willin](#): > > Why would you match up the 2nd and 3rd team from their own divisions? Columbus and Pittsburgh both had better records (more points) than Boston and Ottawa, and yet they have to play each other. > > I’m just bitter that Columbus, as a city, was finally excited for their NHL franchise all season and now the playoffs are crap. The answer is that the NHL is more interested in forcing divisional matchups in the playoffs than they are in running a fair playoffs. The theory is that divisional matchups will garner more interest have better ratings. It’s a cynical, marketing-driven ploy from a bunch of businesspeople who have no interest in good hockey. You have every right to be bitter. I was really hoping that Pittsburgh would wind up being a first-round victim of the new playoff system, because if Crosby went out in the first round, then the NHL would care about the problem. I’m sorry to say that the NHL doesn’t give a crap if Columbus goes out in the first round though. > [@Mithras](#): > > Columbus and Pittsburgh both had better records based on a regular season where they played more games against teams in their division than Boston and Ottawa’s. If you were to get rid of the current playoff system, where you have to win your division and then your conference to get to the final (which is very simple and straight-forward except for the wild card teams potentially crossing divisions-and I’d be fine with eliminating the wild card and making it just the four best teams per division), to make it fair you’d have to completely change how the regular season is scheduled. > > The only reason it seems unfair is because, based on their records, the Metro division teams seem so much stronger than the Atlantic. But then, so far in the playoffs, the Atlantic wild card team that crossed over to the Metro has a better record than Columbus, who is playing a team with a worse record. This is specious reasoning for a number of reasons. First off, the schedules are really not that heavily skewed towards divisional play. It’s something like 3 games per team a year against the other division in your conference and 5 against your own division? Balancing that completely isn’t going to be enough to narrow the **10+ point deficit** between Atlantic teams and Metro teams. If you extrapolate each playoff team’s points percentage to an equal number of games against every team in the conference, the difference is 1 point or less for every team. The NHL is not MLB or the NFL; it doesn’t have a heavily unbalanced schedule. Oh, and by the way, 6/8 playoff teams in the East had a better record against the Atlantic than the Metro, which is more evidence for the belief that the Metro was strong this year. The outliers were Ottawa (0.533 against the Atl and .688 against the Metro) and Pittsburgh (.688 against the Atl and .700 against the Met) ---
**Author:** ![Mithras](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/f04885/32.png) [@Mithras](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mithras)\ **Post date:** [April 17, 2017, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278/40 "2017-04-17T17:23:33Z")
I wasn’t trying to argue that this year the Metro isn’t better than the Atlantic. But if you’re looking at the current system and saying it’s unfair, you can’t continue with the current regular season system where teams play more within their own division than out of it and have the playoffs be conference wide. If you do, you’re just going to end up with more complaints of unfairness in years when a division appears to have a couple teams in a race for the bottom. And the Penguins lost in the first round two seasons ago. That was only a problem for the Penguins organization to solve, not something the NHL needed to concern itself with. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/2017-stanley-cup-playoffs-thread/784278.md?page=3)