The Stanley Cup playoffs start on April 19, 22 days from now. Not that way back, we have been reveling within the Jets being 15-1 to start out the season. However I digress.
The 16-team Stanley Cup event begins on the third Saturday in April, however I might submit we’re already in playoff mode. Groups preventing to get into the post-season and groups preventing for seedings have made this month the most effective month of hockey on the calendar outdoors of the playoffs.
Take final evening, as an example, a typical 10-game evening. Of these video games, 9 had some kind of playoff implication. Or tonight, all six video games may have an effect on what the seedings are. And it’s the identical factor evening after evening.
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All these video games, all these common season video games, have created the belief that this a part of the schedule has true worth.
Now, that will sound like a “Captain Apparent” second to some. However this isn’t a league the place load administration turns into an element, and the aggressive stage of late-season video games declines.
Proper now, three groups are preventing within the Atlantic for first, 5 groups within the East are on the lookout for a wild card spot, and the potential of six Canadian-based groups within the Stanley Cup playoffs is actual. Loopy.
Actually, it speaks to the NHL’s playoff system. When the unique Jets joined the league in 1979, 16 of 21 groups made the playoffs. It was virtually laughable to suppose that solely 5 groups missed the post-season. Now, 32 groups deep, the NHL permits that very same variety of groups, 16, to play for the Stanley Cup. And it has made the Cup essentially the most troublesome trophy in North American sports activities to win.
So, when requested on the current normal managers’ assembly, commissioner Gary Bettman was adamant that there was no want to vary the format of the playoffs as a result of it’s fairly darn good. Sure, there are matchups within the first spherical that some would really like later, however so what? Don’t end second — win the division.
All of it factors again to the worth of the common season. And what we’re witnessing each evening of the schedule is groups realizing how vital a March victory may be in prepping for the post-season.
It really is hockey’s model of March Insanity.
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