carpandean

Agreed. As I've said before, since the season wasn't actually done, instead of separating it into "made it" and "missed it" teams, they separated them into "would have almost surely made it", "would have almost surely missed it" and "not sure whether they would have made it or not" teams. The last group included the teams that would have been the lowest teams to make the playoffs and the highest teams to miss them (and be in the lottery). Those teams are playing one shortened (best of 5) series to determine which is which. The winners take the remaining 8 playoffs spots and the losers take the remaining 8 lottery spots. The only problem (to me) with it is that they ran the lottery before the play-in round, so that when the unlikely event (24.4% chance of a team 8th or higher getting the #1 pick) actually happened, it felt much worse. If they had just finished the play-in rounds, slotted the losers into the last 8 lottery slots and then held the lottery, it wouldn't have been as big of a deal. Those teams would have not been in the official playoffs when the lottery winners were decided. Note: I would also have preferred re-seeding the 8 losers based on regular season point %, worst-to-best to slot into the 8th-worst to 15th-worst slots. As it sits, now, if a good regular-season team has a bad round, they will get the same 1/8 shot as the other 7 losers, instead of lower chance, as would normally happen in the lottery. Even if the play-in round goes as expected, except Toronto loses to Columbus (they are seated higher based on a tiebreaker), then the Maple Leafs will have the same 12.5% chance of picking #1 as Montreal. With the re-seeding, whichever team was seeded 12th would have gotten it, or better yet, if they hadn't already run the lottery , Toronto would instead have had a 1% chance overall of getting the #1 and even conditional on someone in 8-15 getting it, a 4% chance (vs. Montreal's 24.5% chance) of getting the #1. An even worse scenario is if a team like Pittsburgh has a bad round. In essence, they gave each team in 8-15 an equal 3.1% chance overall of getting #1, rather than 6% down to 1% based on regular season performance.

But, hypothetically, if they had just taken the lowest 8 of those teams and decided they were out, too, sending the top 8 into the usual four rounds of playoffs, then ran the lottery as usual, and whatever team was 12th-lowest (too lazy to look it up) had gotten the #1 pick (exact same chance as what happened), would you have felt any better about the outcome just because they didn't get to lose a five (or fewer) game extra "playoff" round?

Detroit and Ottawa getting "boned" has nothing to do with "special" rules for this year. There was a 50.6% chance of Detroit picking fourth, just as there was last year when Ottawa had the worst record. It might be stupid, but it's not "special". As for the other part, it comes down to whether or you accept the premise that, since they didn't finish the season and, thus, "gray area" about who made the playoffs, they added a pre-playoff round to settle that. If you do, then the 15 "non-playoff" teams were in the lottery (even if it the order of events mean we don't know who they are yet, which was the dumbest part), as usual, with the same chances as usual. Is that extra round really that different (conceptually) than being "in the hunt" in late March? Some make it to the playoffs and the rest go in the lottery. Sometimes a "better" team has a bad run, while a "worse" team finishes strong (and, yes, sometime a better team misses out due to being in a stronger division or conference.)

NBCSports proposal for the Sharks to acquire Eichel if he demands a trade: Sabres give up Eichel for ... Timo Meier*, Ryan Merkley, Jonathan Dahlen and a future first-round pick * Note: he initially suggests Burns instead of Meier, but then makes a pretty good argument for why that wouldn't work.

Uhh ... the players never tank during the regular season, much less during the playoffs. The GM does so by trading away good NHL players, by keeping well-performing players in the AHL, by favoring "getting the kids experience" when they're not really ready, etc, etc. At best, the GM might get the coach on board, too, but never the players. Two things stick out from our tank years: (1) every goalie who won a few games being traded away, and (2) Mike Weber getting pissed at fans for cheering against the team in a critical loss near the end of a tank season. In this scenario, two things are very different than even the regular season: (1) the GM has very little roster control at this point, and (2) it's an actual round of games that could lead to a Cup. No GM will get the coach and players to "tank" a five game play-in series.

And the first one is faaaaaaaar more important that the other two combined. A true 2C helps the wingers on that line, including likely Skinner. Hutton will have his eye problem under control, so that will improve his play if he's still here.

Problem solved. ?

If they haven't lost yet, then how are they "a team that's not going to move on" and what exactly would they do to tank? The players won't play any less hard if they still have a chance. The coach won't play anything less than the best players if they still have a chance. The GM is pretty limited in what he can do at this point. Even with that little control, do you think that, for example, Montreal's GM will do anything to hurt their chances, however small, of beating Pittsburgh and moving on?

Only if they cost themselves a chance at the Cup by losing to the 24th overall team. As the 7th-best team, the wouldn't even have made it to what would be the first round of the playoffs in a normal year. Even then, they would only have a 12.5% of winning it. Three very unlikely things would have to have happened, only one of which has now occurred.

I have no more problem with the outcome than I would have had if they had just put 16 teams in the playoffs, they had run the lottery as normal and some team in 9-15 had won it. The team that ends up getting it will have 3-5 additional games (still fewer than they would have needed for a complete regular season) and a short series loss, but no more chance of winning the Stanley Cup than we do. They either were in the bottom 15 or will have lost to a team that was in the bottom 15.

To whomever built this table, odds <> probability. The odds of Detroit winning are 0.227 (= 0.185/0.815) or, put differently, 1:4.405.

Maybe a hybrid approach:

There are two ways to view a wave: from a person standing in the water's perspective or from the wave's. Like throwing pebbles in the water, a wave propagates out from the points of origin. From the point of view of a person (say, a city or state, in this case), you could argue that someplace like NYC is done with the first wave and potentially looking at a second wave coming. From the point of view of the wave, the first wave has moved out from the initial hot spot cities to other areas of the country, so it continues. Looking at total cases for the country, in one so large (in physical size), yet spread out (in terms of population masses) as ours gives a much less useful picture, because the waves seen at various locations are lost in this discussion.

Yeah, and when you're told, Bruno and Hans are usually there to help you find your way out out the door ...

Do it! I can wear my Mair jersey (authentic 2008-09 alternate) to Amerks games!

x 7?

U8 or the mashup ... U8 Who

I'm looking at his pinkie. Is he sipping tea?

Has any other year? 2013?

That first round is sort of gray area. It's not really the playoffs and not really the regular season. Without finishing the season and without having the same GPs, you have muddier waters about who should be in than a normal season. So, you in essence have a round to split those into two clear groups. The ones that win are, in essence, the ones who made the playoffs, while the ones who lose are the ones who missed (and, thus, are in the lottery.) In theory, the bad teams, who wouldn't have made the playoffs in a full season, will be the ones to lose in the first round. There may be some lucky outcomes, but I don't really have an issue with it. There were basically two choices: (1) walk away from this season without a finish and leave next season alone, or (2) make compromises on both to have a finish to this season. They chose (2), which will likely give them more total revenue. I'm guessing only 7 team's fanbases are really upset about this.

I'd agree that he was better this year. Don't know if that's because of, in spite of or regardless of the coach.

Watching the video, the photo is maybe a second after the puck crossed the line. Hard to judge the actually response when there hadn't been enough time for everyone to process that it actually went in. Patrick Kane made it to center ice in 2015 before anyone realized that he had scored (unfortunately, on the road, so there wasn't much excitement when they did.)

I have a beef with au jus.