2021- 22 Schedule

[New Jersey Devil]

They aren't getting rid of playing every team home and away. Fans want to see all 31 opponents at home.

I meant I hope teams don't play every team in back-to-back games. For example, Devils play Los Angeles in LA, then like 2 nights later, both teams play each other again in New Jersey.

 

[coolboarder]

I meant I hope teams don't play every team in back-to-back games. For example, Devils play Los Angeles in LA, then like 2 nights later, both teams play each other again in New Jersey.

That could be done, NJ would go on a west coast trip first against Sharks, Ducks, and Kings then go home play against the Kings then the Kings would go on the road trip against other Eastern teams for a few games. I just do not see any different. Easily could done Fri-Sun or Thurs-Sat games back to back with no advantage on travel itself (both teams travel day on games in between.

 

[Bucky_Hoyt]

B is closer to what I prefer. But what I'd rather see is 8 divisions of 4, with 4 conferences. 6 vs own division, 4 vs other in conference division, 2 vs everyone else. And that works out to 82 games

Agree that the math is sound but you may run the risk of some weaker divisions like when there were 6. Fans may also get tired of the same playoff matchups over and over, which is much more likely with 8 divisons.

 

[Dynamite Kid]

What if the border remains closed? What would they do then? Makes me wonder what they would do with Arizona being a so card "wild card" creating a 9 team division.

 

[Digital Kid]

What if the border remains closed? What would they do then? Makes me wonder what they would do with Arizona being a so card "wild card" creating a 9 team division.

If the borders are still closed in October then we have much much much bigger issues at hand...!

 

[New Jersey Devil]

That could be done, NJ would go on a west coast trip first against Sharks, Ducks, and Kings then go home play against the Kings then the Kings would go on the road trip against other Eastern teams for a few games. I just do not see any different. Easily could done Fri-Sun or Thurs-Sat games back to back with no advantage on travel itself (both teams travel day on games in between.

Then it wouldn't actually be a true home-and-home series against every team in the league (which, like I said in a previous post, I hope it doesn't happen).

 

[Shockmaster]

Agree that the math is sound but you may run the risk of some weaker divisions like when there were 6. Fans may also get tired of the same playoff matchups over and over, which is much more likely with 8 divisons.

Option B would be even worse in that regard as they would be all divisional playoffs in the 1st two rounds. At least with the 8 division format, I assume they would have a conference format with the division winners being the top 4 seeds and seeds 5-8 are whoever has the most points in the conference after that.

If they went with 8 divisions, I could see it looking like this:

EASTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
Division 2: Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh
Division 3: New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia
Division 4: Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington

WESTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Chicago, Minnesota, Nashville, Winnipeg
Division 2: Arizona, Colorado, Dallas, St. Louis
Division 3: Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vegas
Division 4: Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver

 

[tank44]

If they went with 8 divisions, I could see it looking like this:

EASTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
Division 2: Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh
Division 3: New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia
Division 4: Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington

WESTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Chicago, Minnesota, Nashville, Winnipeg
Division 2: Arizona, Colorado, Dallas, St. Louis
Division 3: Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vegas
Division 4: Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver

IMO, This looks really good. 4 games each within division, 3 games each within conference, 2 games each against other conference = 80 games. Then playoffs could be the 4 division winners + next 4 best records per conference

 

[Bucky_Hoyt]

Option B would be even worse in that regard as they would be all divisional playoffs in the 1st two rounds. At least with the 8 division format, I assume they would have a conference format with the division winners being the top 4 seeds and seeds 5-8 are whoever has the most points in the conference after that.

If they went with 8 divisions, I could see it looking like this:

EASTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
Division 2: Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh
Division 3: New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia
Division 4: Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington

WESTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Chicago, Minnesota, Nashville, Winnipeg
Division 2: Arizona, Colorado, Dallas, St. Louis
Division 3: Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vegas
Division 4: Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver

If teams in the West have no issue playing 2 timezones or more away right from round 1 then, yeah, could work.

 

[Shockmaster]

If teams in the West have no issue playing 2 timezones or more away right from round 1 then, yeah, could work.

True, but if the league ends up going with option A in the OP that could happen regardless. So that scenario is already on the table.

 

[DaBadGuy7]

NBA rumored 2021-2022 schedule, makes sense that NHL wants to start a week earlier. It’s guessing SCF will end either June 12 or June 26 depending on Olympics:

 

[KevFu]

Option B would be even worse in that regard as they would be all divisional playoffs in the 1st two rounds. At least with the 8 division format, I assume they would have a conference format with the division winners being the top 4 seeds and seeds 5-8 are whoever has the most points in the conference after that.

If they went with 8 divisions, I could see it looking like this:

EASTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
Division 2: Buffalo, Columbus, Detroit, Pittsburgh
Division 3: New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia
Division 4: Carolina, Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington

WESTERN CONFERENCE:
Division 1: Chicago, Minnesota, Nashville, Winnipeg
Division 2: Arizona, Colorado, Dallas, St. Louis
Division 3: Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vegas
Division 4: Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver

Serious question. Why would anyone of those teams vote for THAT over what we have now?

Forget who's in which group of four... and just look at the West: That's literally just cutting what we have NOW, just cut half.

So CHI is going to play DAL/STL less, so they can fit in an extra round vs the Pacific. There's not really a point to that when everyone voted on "2 vs everyone in the league, rest in division" because they didn't want that 3rd game with the other division in their conference.

 

[Shockmaster]

Serious question. Why would anyone of those teams vote for THAT over what we have now?

Forget who's in which group of four... and just look at the West: That's literally just cutting what we have NOW, just cut half.

So CHI is going to play DAL/STL less, so they can fit in an extra round vs the Pacific. There's not really a point to that when everyone voted on "2 vs everyone in the league, rest in division" because they didn't want that 3rd game with the other division in their conference.

Depends on if they strictly want the top 4 teams in each division to make the playoffs. COVID forced that format this past season, but when the league had to re-align for Winnipeg years back they opted not to make it strictly top 4, which is how we got wild cards. It doesn't seem like they'll do a 2-conference, 8-division idea (admittedly it puts a lot of rivals in different divisions), but given what happened last time they chose to re-align it shouldn't surprise anyone if they vote against having the top 4 teams in each division make the playoffs.

 

[MNNumbers]

Depends on if they strictly want the top 4 teams in each division to make the playoffs. COVID forced that format this past season, but when the league had to re-align for Winnipeg years back they opted not to make it strictly top 4, which is how we got wild cards. It doesn't seem like they'll do a 2-conference, 8-division idea (admittedly it puts a lot of rivals in different divisions), but given what happened last time they chose to re-align it shouldn't surprise anyone if they vote against having the top 4 teams in each division make the playoffs.

This is not strictly the story. When they realigned for Winnipeg, the first proposal was 4 strict, separate conferences, which would have had 2 rounds of playoffs in each. However, there were only 30 teams, so it was a 7-7-8-8 arrangement. The PA vetoed that on the basis of unequal playoff chances, and that is what led to the Wild Card. The Wild Card is what led to the present playing matrix.

I have seen some idea that only minimal changes will happen for next year, so it will be a slight modification of the 4-3-2, with the same Wild Cards as now.

For 22-23, we don't know yet.

If they do the 4/2 plus 6 model, there is no real reason that those 6 games have to be 3 pairs of home and homes. For example, the 7 Canada teams might choose one game extra with all the other Canada teams.

 

[LadyStanley]

Looks like schedule maker has been busy.

(And still waiting on final approvals for Olympics)

 

[Brodeur]

Follow up tweet from John Shannon:



I look forward to future vacation planning and having another excuse to visit my friends in Seattle.

 

[jkrdevil]

Looks like schedule maker has been busy.

(And still waiting on final approvals for Olympics)

Interesting that with the new tv deal the start date of the season moves from a Wednesday to a Tuesday.

 

[Shockmaster]

Follow up tweet from John Shannon:



I look forward to future vacation planning and having another excuse to visit my friends in Seattle.

Did they settle on what kind of regular season format the league is going to use?

 

[MNNumbers]

Did they settle on what kind of regular season format the league is going to use?

The only thing I have heard is that it's late to get something 'new' through the BOG, so they are doing to do the format from pro-COVID.

But, that doesn't really tell us much, because a 4-3-2 schedule would make:
4*7=28
3*8=24
2*16=32
and, that's 84 games, so something has to give somewhere, and I haven't seen anything about what it might be.

 

[Shockmaster]

The only thing I have heard is that it's late to get something 'new' through the BOG, so they are doing to do the format from pro-COVID.

But, that doesn't really tell us much, because a 4-3-2 schedule would make:
4*7=28
3*8=24
2*16=32
and, that's 84 games, so something has to give somewhere, and I haven't seen anything about what it might be.

If that's the case, then everyone probably loses a game against two divisional opponents. Wonder if that prompts a 1-8 conference format playoffs.

 

[MNNumbers]

If that's the case, then everyone probably loses a game against two divisional opponents. Wonder if that prompts a 1-8 conference format playoffs.

What you just wrote is exactly one of the 2 proposals offered to the BOG. It was offered as if it would do exactly as you say, make the playoffs conference based.

I don't like that, being a Western fan. Distances too great.

 

[oknazevad]

Interesting that with the new tv deal the start date of the season moves from a Wednesday to a Tuesday.

While opening night, which is usually treated as a special event, is not necessarily indicative of a regular spot, perhaps this means that ESPN is looking at Tuesday as their regular weeknight for NHL games.

 

[KevFu]

When Bettman said "NBA season goes October to June, just like us, but they play in the Summer Olympics, not during their regular season. I've told the IOC we'd love to be part of the Summer Olympics" it freaking blew my mind.

This is probably more off an Off Topic, Business of Sports post.... but the Olympics -- and their TV partners -- should really sit down and re-draw the Winter/Summer Olympic sports menu.

The Winter Olympics started with "what do we need cold temperatures for, like skiing and skating sports" and all the other Olympic sports were left in the Summer, when there's a very large number of them that really don't HAVE to be summer sports:

Wrestling, Weight Lifting, Badminton, Boxing, Fencing, Handball, Judo, Karate, Taekwondo, Table Tennis,
Volleyball (Indoor), Indoor Cycling, Swimming, Gymnastics.

2020 Summer Olympics: 339 medal events; 42 venues
2018 Winter Olympics: 102 medal events; 14 venues


If they moved Swimming and everything else on that list except Gymnastics to the Winter, and hockey to the Summer....
they'd balance the number of medals, the number of venues needed, probably wouldn't LOSE any Summer ratings because Gymnastics and Track are 2 of the 3 most popular TV ratings sports, and GAIN a ton of viewers for the Winter.

 

[LadyStanley]

Swimming may or may not be an open air facility. (Really depends on local region)

 

[KevFu]

Swimming may or may not be an open air facility. (Really depends on local region)

Barcelona (1992) and Los Angeles (1984) and were the only two outdoor swimming venues used for the last 10 Olympics.
(Counting the swimming events only, not the water polo/sync venues).

For 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, they list the USC baseball field (which is right next to the USC pool) as the venue for swimming. Looks to be a temporary retrofit and will be outdoor.