SUNRISE, Fla. — Imagine Wimbledon every year matching up the top two seeds in each half of the draw in the second round. Imagine the…
SUNRISE, Fla. — Imagine Wimbledon every year matching up the top two seeds in each half of the draw in the second round. Imagine the World Cup placing the four most powerful squads in the same group. Imagine March Madness placing the top four seeds in the country in the same region.
While you’re at it, you may as well imagine there’s no heaven, because it’s easy if you try to imagine the NHL cutting off its own knees by matching up its best teams in the first or second round of the playoffs in a made-for-marketing scheme, because that is exactly what Sixth Avenue and its band of clueless co-conspirators on the Board do year after year after year.
Once again, we’re on course for the two most powerful teams in the East, this time Tampa Bay and Toronto, to meet in the second round, just as surely we’re due for a Western Conference Winnipeg-Nashville matchup. Or if you believe that the Avalanche will challenge the Jets and Predators, well, have no fear, that would mean the best three in the conference are all in the Central Division with one guaranteed to be KO’d in Round 1.
It is laughable that the commissioner and the Board of Governors of “Mr. Jacobs” would do such harm to what should be the greatest championship tournament in pro sports. Such nonsense exists in no other sports universe. It is bad enough for Sixth Avenue to concoct yet another scheme meant to reward weaker teams, but it is infinitely worse for the owners and chief executive officers of the NHL’s most powerful teams to be complicit by their silence.
But then, so many owners of the league’s power franchises sell out their own fan bases to support restrictive CBA policies, so it is easy to imagine why they’d act against their own self-interests under this playoff format scenario. Wouldn’t you think that Brendan Shanahan of Toronto and Jeff Vinik of Tampa Bay, who oversee operations built to remain elite for the long haul, would voice their concern and lobby for a change, for a change? But no, last week’s Board meeting came and went without the topic being addressed in a serious manner, if at all.
