There's something about watching the red, white and blue of Montreal skating in a best-of-seven against Boston that stirs something inside the heart of any born-and-bred hockey fan. Forget that the Bruins don't have much. Forget that Les Habitants are wearing those brilliant red uniforms at home. It's good to see those teams in the playoffs, even if I'd trade it in a second for a home playoff game at HSBC Arena against the Panthers.
The Original Six match-up got me thinking about something the NHL could implement during the regular season to spice up the 82-game schedule. Normally I'm against ridiculous ideas that change the format of the schedule, but hear me out.
This season, the league jammed a number of divisional match-ups together twice, once in late Fall and again to finish the regular season. What if, as a series, these match-ups were a round robin that meant something. In November, each team would have two home and two road games against their divisional opponents, and in April they'd do it again, switching venues for each respective teams.
Each would be played as a home-and-home, and consist of all the division games for the year. Since the divisions have less meaning than ever in the One-through-eight Conference playoff seeding, you could determine the division champion by this tournament. The home-and-home contests would help invigorate rivalries between traditional rivals like Detroit and Chicago, while perhaps stirring fan bases in Phoenix to actually feel some hate for Dallas.
It would also guarantee that a team that's been eliminated from contention by the end of the season would have something to play for in the last eight games, even if they went through a perilous stretch in the first round of divisional play.
There are a ton of holes here, but the series champion would earn an automatic playoff spot that would not be protected. So, if a 24-50-8 Los Angeles team happened to win the series, they would finish eighth. If any other team in their division finished the season higher, they could qualify higher than Los Angeles, but the Kings wouldn't lose their spot.
I don't know what you'd do with the other four games between divisional opponents, maybe they'd matter, too? I just thought of this now, so please slice me some slack.
I've also heard the 10 teams in each conference make the playoffs rule, with one-through-six getting a bye while seven plays ten and eight plays nine in two Best-of-Three series. I don't hate this, but I want the divisional games to matter more, and there are almost too many playoff teams as it is.
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