You can suck for 6 months, squeak in and win with a hot goalie. Imagine the Kings as Stanley Cup champs.

The format has to change.

Have two ways to win...Stanley Cup playoffs.. only 8 teams. That way the regular season has some meaning.

Then have basically an FA Cup/NCAA March Madness type best of three elimination knockout tournament including teams from other leagues (with seeding and byes), so you have the thrill of giant killers, but a hot NHL team can win that.

And add promotion/relegation, like British soccer, so that there's something to play for at the bottom.

http://www.slate.com/articles/sports/sp ... ockey.html

Baseball should do this too, but it will never happen.

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r n

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r n

Love it! I raise you an AHL. ECHL giant killer meme:

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I've actually been enjoying these playoffs. 'Cuz the Pens aren't on the same radar screen for me as the Steelers, I"ve been able to keep watching with a minimum of angst. Not only are Kings, the #8 seed in the finals, but they've been plundering & pillaging on the way, winning 12 of 14 games.

But what's the point of the regular season?

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Which is probably why I watch very little regular season hockey. I watch the Pens when I can, though not even all the time. I rarely watch any other teams during the regular season.

Used to be even worse, when 16 of 21 teams made the playoffs. Was a time, remember, when 12 teams made the playoffs, with 1st round bye, right?

Right on schedule, a headline writer at Yahoo says the Rangers are "On Thin Ice".

This is the most unfunny overused cliche in hockey/skating reporting and needs to be taken behind the barn and shot.

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Too much money in having 16 teams make the playoffs.

A new format was proposed and declined by the players that had teams split into 4 conferences with the top 4 teams going to the playoffs from each conference. It was a great idea that allowed the opportunity for some really odd stanley cup final pairings. Minus the 7 other teams in your division, you could play ANY other team in the NHl in the finals. It got rid of the stupid division winners being ahead of the teams with higher point totals and getting home ice.

Make up the money in the knockout tournament and have another championship for regular season excellence.

Yeah, they make money in the playoffs but it dilutes the regular season.

And they'd more than make up the difference again by creating excitement in the developmental leagues.

With that many teams I don't know why you can't have more than one tournament.

I look at EPL, a fantastic organization that makes a boring sport exciting..

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