The Importance of Family/Friends in the NHL

Days like Thanksgiving and Christmas are days when Americans can join together with their closest friends and family, share a meal, and love one another.

Every year, the NFL has two three games on Thanksgiving day/night. Now let me ask you realistically; how many times has it occurred that you ignored your family while you and the other males in your family ditched the Thanksgiving meal and watched football. The answer is probably a lot.

Apparently the NBA has some tradition thing-y with games on Christmas but I wouldn't know because I don't watch basketball. But these games, I'm sure interfere with family time as well. (by the way, congratulations to the NBA on missing several months of their season! Yay!)

Well the NHL has got it right. No games on Thanksgiving so Puck Heads can relax and enjoy the holiday. Additionally, they not only have off Christmas day, but they also don't have games on Christmas Eve so you won't miss any games while being with family.

So Puck Heads, spend the day off with family while you have no reason to spend time watching sports.

So on behalf of Robin's Nest, Happy Holidays to all! And to you too Benoit Pouliot.

Heartless Celebration Leads To 38 PIM, misconducts; Overtime First

Last night in the Rangers-Lightning game, Artem Anisimov scored a shorthanded goal to put the Rangers up 2-1 with about 6:30 left in the second period. It's not necessarily the scoring that got people upset. Rather it was how he celebrated that resulted in over 38 penalty minutes and 2 game misconducts.

Now I'm not sure exactly why he did it. Perhaps it was saying he's a sharpshooter and doesn't miss or maybe that it was a signal saying that the Lightning were done for the night and that he scored the winner. But whatever reason he had for doing was silly and immature.

Now everyone has seen Teemu Selanne's sick shooting goal celebration back from his Winnipeg days but that celebration was a bit different considering the jovial attitude of it all. The symbolism was obvious. It was like him shooting at a clay disc in the sky.
Here, the Lightning had to interpret on their own what Anisimov was shooting at. Immediately after he did the shooting, Tampa forward, Vincent Lecavalier, who skated right into the line of fire of Anisimov, skated right toward him in anger. And before you knew it we had a whole line brawl.

Tampa forward Steve Downie skated onto the ice from the Tampa bench to get into some of the fighting. Now believe it or not, this was technically allowed because it was ruled as a legal line change because a Tampa forward had already skated off the ice just prior to Downie going on. Downie (and Anisimov) were given game misconducts and everyone combined totaled 38 penalty minutes. It's still realistic for Downie to receive a suspension for going on the ice to fight but we'll have to wait and see. And I doubt Anisimov will get suspended either. If you have an opinion on what should happen leave a comment.

In the end, the Lightning pulled off a 3-2 shootout win.
__________________________________________________________________________________

Last night in the Devils-Senators game, the Devils had a 4 on 3 man advantage going into overtime. However, the rule book says that a team must have at least 3 men on the ice at all times. So the Devils had a 4 on 3 to start overtime. However, once all the penalties expired and the penalized players went onto the ice, both teams had 5 skaters aside for about a minute. This was a very interesting and unusual occurrence. I'm not sure if it has ever happened before but I doubt it.
__________________________________________________________________________________

This year there have been a larger amount of suspensions due to headshots in the NHL. Brendan Shanahan has been busy making explanation videos since the beginning of the pre-season. Well Shanahan didn't have to make 1 video thanks to Philadelphia's Claude Giroux's great reflexes. Watch:

Malkin clearly was aiming for the head and would probably have warranted a suspension had he connected with his deliberate head shot. But Giroux somehow ducked under the punch just in the nick of time.

NHL Realignment Plans Finalized

When the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg, the NHL was in dire need for a realignment. Winnipeg would have had to stay in the Southeast Division for at least a year giving the southern teams and the Jets a difficult traveling schedule. While they were already planning on switching up the Divisions, the question for the NHL was whether or not they should completely shake up the way the teams are divided.

Well they did.

NHL Division Map Before Realignment.

After an hour long meeting yesterday with the NHL Board of Governors, the league decided to adopt a system where there are 4 different conferences. The teams were split up for traveling convenience. There are 2 conferences with 8 teams (those two conferences are with Western teams) and then the two 7 team conferences are with Eastern teams. All 30 NHL teams voted whether or not they liked the proposal and an astonishing 26 teams voted yes for it (they required at least 20 teams to vote for it). So the four conferences are:

Western Teams:
Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, San Jose' Sharks, Phoenix Coyotes, Colorado Avalanche, Vancouver Canucks, Calgary Flames, and Edmonton Oilers.

Dallas Stars, St. Louis Blues, Chicago Blackhawks, Minnesota Wild, Winnipeg Jets, Nashville Predators, Detroit Red Wings, and Columbus Blue Jackets.

Eastern Teams:
Toronto Maple Leafs, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres, Boston Bruins, Florida Panthers, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Washington Capitals, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Carolina Hurricanes.

NHL Conference Map After Realignment

Well here's how the scheduling is going to work. For teams in the 7 team conference, you play each conference team six times and then play a home and home with every other team in the NHL.


Now for the playoffs schedule. The top 4 teams in each conference make the playoffs. Yes that means that if there's a good team in a difficult division and they finish fifth in their conference, they won't make the playoffs while a not-as-good team in a weak conference will. Let's say the Devils have 84 points in their tough conference and finish 5th, a team with 80 pionts may make the playoffs in a weaker conference. And this is definitely something that's going to occur and it WILL agitate many fans.

So the first two rounds are inter-conference games. The 1 seed vs. the 4 seed and the 2 seed vs. the 3 seed. Then the winners of those games meet. That means that there won't be any chance of a rivalry game past the second round. Most rivalry matchups will be wasted within the first two rounds. Great series like the Rangers-Devils or Penguins-Capitals will be done with quickly and we won't see them late in the playoffs. That's one slight thing that's disappointing for the NHL who's had memorable Conference Finals in years past. Another problem is that the 2 best teams in the league might end up playing in the second round if they're in the same division instead of those teams making it deep into the playoffs. That will definitely take away from the excitement of those late rounds.

The NHL has not yet announced its plans for post-second round of the playoffs.

The change obviously has its ups and downs. For starters, they set up the conferences with rivalries in mind so each team will play their rival a good 6 times. We will see Crosby against Ovechkin a lot more than we normally would. Also, we will automatically see rare Eastern team vs. Western teams on a daily basis now. With every team playing each other at least two times a year, we'll see good games like Vancouver against Boston.

Now for some problems with this idea.

The Buffalo Sabres play the Devils, Rangers, and Islanders the same amount of times they play teams like the Ducks or Sharks. This doesn't quite make sense geographically. 

Another thing, the Carolina Hurricanes pretty much lost every single rivalry they made. Their only division team they have left with them next year is the Washington Capitals who we all know is A) not much of a rivalry anymore and B) the Caps are sure to move on to new/past rivals like the Islanders or the Penguins.

The change did make several teams happy though with their traveling. These teams were stuck in the Western Conference having to play a lot on the West Coast which was an inconvenience to the team's traveling schedule and the fans' viewing schedule. Those teams included the Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets, Dallas Stars, and Minnesota Wild.

Another inconvenience this change presents is that the Winnipeg Jets only play other Canadian teams twice a year each. These are marquee matchups that aren't going to happen too often after this season.

But there are still some good things about this. The likelihood of seeing those rivalry playoff series are much greater. Year after year we'll be seeing series with the Rangers-Devils, Penguins-Capitals, Oilers-Flames, Bruins-Canadiens etc. That is definitely a good thing for the NHL.

The fact though that 26 out of the 30 NHL teams voted for this was pretty amazing. It shows that most teams are on board with this idea. As for the 4 teams that didn't vote for it? Well analyst Pierre LeBrun hypothesized that among those 4 teams were the Rangers and Lightning. I personally think that the Hurricanes, Lightning, Panthers, and Islanders were the teams.

In my opinion, I think that realignment was necessary; we all did. But I don't think we needed something THIS radical. I don't like the playoff system for previously stated reasons. I kind of like the fact that the regular season means more. There are less playoff spots for bubble teams to make it now. If the Washington Capitals slack off for a part of the season (like they're doing this year) they might not make the playoffs. So this makes regular season games more important. But I also don't like that teams play other teams on the different side of the map as many times as they play teams a few miles away from them. It just doesn't make sense.

A couple of more pressing matters.

Firstly (and most important,) is what are we going to name these conferences? A lot of speculation is going around (including this great article by Puck Daddy on Yahoo! sports) but nobody knows for sure. Possibilities are the classic Northeast, Atlantic, Pacific, and Central. But the NHL has had divisions like the Patrick, Smythe, or Adams, honouring past players. So people are wondering if there will be more recent legends being honoured (e.g. Gretzky, Orr, Hull, etc.)

Another issue is what will we do with the Wales and Campbell Trophies. Those trophies are presented to the champions of the Eastern and Western Conference respectively. Well now those trophies seem obsolete. But it's not like players touch it anyway...

Note: Please vote on the side of the page for if you like the realignment plans or not.