So if your gonna slob all over Wysh’s list, and say that the best games happened pre-lockout, how do explain Puck Daddy’s list of the 10 best games of the decade? Of the 6 NHL games on the list, 4 of them were post-lockout, only 2 were pre-lockout, and one of those was only on the list because it was the heritage classic, not because it was an extremely exciting game.

I guess it just comes down to what you consider an exciting game. I’d rather watch two evenly matched teams (no matter what their skill level) battle it out to the last minute than see a team stacked with Gretzky, Kurri, Messier, Coffey and so on beat up on a bunch of nobodies.

Posted by Kstewy16 on 11/19/09 at 12:23 PM ET

I’d say the Wings, Sharks, Devils and Penguins are all elite teams.  Washington, Chicago, Calgary, are also fairly close.

The Cap is better than seeing a team spend three times as much as another guy to win a Cup.  It doesn’t even give the other teams a chance.  Parity is a very good thing.  It’s the only thing that really got me back into the NHL scene. 

And how can you have “as good hockey as possible” if one team is just terrible?  I just don’t understand that.  Maybe you can explain it a bit clearer.  If by good hockey, you mean for your team then it’s understandable.

Plus, the teams are a bit skewed.  For Atlanta and Columbus, it was their sophomore season and the Penguins was pre-Crosby, Malkin, and Fleury.

And I’ve watched a lot of bad teams’  games this year and they just look terrible this season.  Toronto, Carolina, Minnesota, Anaheim are all included.

One thing I do agree on is the fact that you shouldn’t get points for losing.  Or at least they should give more points for winning in regulation.  btw, I’m a big supporter of the 3-2-1 point system.

Good blog man.  You always seem to ruffle some feathers but it’s all good.  Keep up the good work!

Posted by Matt Fry from Winnipeg on 11/19/09 at 12:31 PM ET

The Oilers playoff series against the New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers or Boston Bruins were not series against nobodies (or in earlier rounds the Calgary Flames).  You seem to have a misplaced impression that they played some last place team in the finals.  They didn`t they played another very good team.

What do I make of Puck Daddy`s top 10 games of the decade?  Obviously the way they pick best games is different from the way I do.  They are willing to pick NCAA games, Heritage Classic games, regular season (October) comebacks on their list.  I don`t think that list has any relevance to what is being discussed here.  It has completely different criteria for selection of games than I would use.  For this discussion it is not relevant.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 11/19/09 at 12:31 PM ET

TPSH,

As I read this particular series of articles, they read more like an NDP platform, engaged in fighting for a better yesterday. Let’s look at all the other changes that have occurred over the years that have impacted the ability to create and maintain elite teams:

Ending the Territorial Exemption
Montreal fans, you in particular should be enraged. Because of this unfair practice imposed by the NHL, all the great Quebec-born players no longer automatically stream into the Montreal Canadiens organization. Over the last four decades, this mean-spirited rule has cost the Habs Mario Lemieux, Vincent Lecavalier and Martin Brodeur to name three, and how knows how many Stanley Cups could have been won in that time. Only two Cups in the last 30 years? Unfair!

Establishing the Entry Draft
Terrible! How dare the NHL impose this unfair practice, where the worst teams in the league should have first pick at the best new talent. Indeed, the league should return to the good old days, where children were signed to contracts in their early teens and indentured into NHL service for a particular team for life, like Bobby Orr with the Boston Bruins. Who cares that drafting a Mario Lemieux or a Sidney Crosby eventually led to Cups for a Pittsburgh Penguins team, when an elite team with money and resources dedicated to staying elite could have locked up all these players as children and maintained its dominance.

Ending the Reserve Clause
We all weep from that day the NHL canned the reserve clause, which kept a player as property of an NHL club essentially for life. How many elite teams have been broken up because of ill-thought free agency, that radical concept which allows a player to have the option to move on to greener pastures and higher dollars at a certain age or after a number of years in the league. Madness! If these greedy players could just be kept under the thumb of their NHL overlords, elite teams could keep their best players forever.

Restricting Free Agency
How can the NHL impose limits on free agency, impeding the progress of monied teams to buy the best NHL talent on the market, regardless of the cost? What an unfair practice! Elite teams should have the right to continue to plunder the league and sign any player they wish to preserve their elite status, and without needing to provide compensation. So Scott Stevens helped bring some Cups to New Jersey when he was compensation for the Blues signing Brendan Shanahan. Imagine how elite the Blues could have been with both Shanahan AND Stevens. As for the Devils, who cares? They weren’t elite yet, so they didn’t qualify for protected status.

Allowing Fluxuations in the Canadian Dollar and the Price of Oil
You know, the two best teams in the last thirty years existed before the global economic system began pounding the Canadian dollar and dropping the price of oil into the gutter. Think of those Calgary and Edmonton squads from the 1980s. Now THOSE were elite teams, from a province awash in petro-dollars and hockey talent Allowing the price of oil to decline to a fraction of its value in the 1990s and then the tumble of the Canadian dollar ended any chance of maintaining these elite teams. Forget about the overall economy, those measures were just bad for elite Alberta hockey!

Entropy and Original Sin:
It is a terrible shame that age and decay should diminish the skills of elite players, resulting in the passing of elite teams. Back in the Garden of Eden, before death entered the world through original sin, everything was perfect. Players stayed in their prime forever and teams remained elite. Life was good. But then Gary Bettman just HAD to offer Eve that apple and… well, you know the rest of the story…

Posted by Matthew McCallum from Redding, California on 11/19/09 at 01:23 PM ET

Is Puck Daddy’s list fact or just someone’s opinion?  You are taking it as fact when it is just someone’s opinion.

Posted by moore00 from Columbus, OH/Grand Rapids, MI on 11/19/09 at 01:37 PM ET

Obviously its an opinion.  It is a well-founded opinion that clearly backs up the point I have been making for a while about the current direction of the NHL.  It shows that other intelligent people are seeing the results of the changes the NHL has made.  It strengthens my case because I am showing how other well-founded opinions are consistent with my own.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 11/19/09 at 01:51 PM ET

You cannot cater to bandwagon fans.

Unfortunately, you have little choice.  There simply aren’t enough general hockey fans for the NHL to be competitive on a dual-national stage.  The only way to grow the general hockey fanbase is to either increase population very rapidly or to lure people to the bandwagon and hope that they stay there when their team returns to the bottom. 

The problem is that bandwagon fans help make things profitable.  Pittsburgh’s die-hard fans weren’t enough to keep that team out of bankruptcy (I realize I am oversimplifying a vast and complex issue here, but it’s basically the truth).  Now that the team is successful, the bandwagon is full and the owners are making money hand-over-fist.  Hopefully, enough of them will stick around when the pendulum swings back the other way.  When an already popular team is experiencing success and people on the fringes join the bandwagon, that helps drive up ticket prices and, as a result, profits. 

I understand that you’re saying that you can’t worry too much about chasing after bandwagon fans, but you can’t ignore their power either.

I’ve argued myself that the league often chooses the more profitable route over the route which is best for the spirit of hockey, but I’m wondering how you personally, as the model of a general hockey fan can balance the two?  I’d like to see your thoughts on that.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 11/19/09 at 04:18 PM ET

JJ

My question, before writing anything too lengthy, is what moves has the NHL made that benefit the bandwagon fan over a more serious fan?

Perhaps once we establish what moves we are talking about - and perhaps estimate their effectiveness - we can then discuss marketing to bandwagon fans instead of a general fan of hockey.  In general it seems like a lost cause when some market argues that if only they had a winning team, they would show the market is a good hockey market.  You cannot build a marketing plan around having 30 winning teams - teams must lose in order to have winners.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 11/19/09 at 04:25 PM ET

Perhaps once we establish what moves we are talking about - and perhaps estimate their effectiveness - we can then discuss marketing to bandwagon fans instead of a general fan of hockey.  In general it seems like a lost cause when some market argues that if only they had a winning team, they would show the market is a good hockey market.  You cannot build a marketing plan around having 30 winning teams - teams must lose in order to have winners.

The biggest thing is the salary cap and all the forced parity that brings.  I realize that you can’t make all 30 teams winners over a given season, but you have to give credit to momentum. 

In an ideal salary cap world that creates bandwagon-happy parity, every team has a legitimate or even outside shot at the cup for three out of ten years and a shot at the playoffs for seven of ten.  Ideally, those non-legitimate shots at the playoffs are spread far enough apart throughout the decade.  Bandwagon support is very momentum driven.  If a team is a top contender one year and a bottom feeder the next, the bandwagon at least stays warm through a period of time.  If the team gets good again before that period ends, the bandwagon can fill back up without losing out on all of that momentum.

Of course, as a regular hockey fan myself, I think that’s a crappy way to run a sport, but it seems to be the plan.  So, how do you get the perfect mix of best profits for the league in general (which means having the maximum number of profitable teams, ideally 30), best profits for the individual teams (having enough success to keep turning a profit thanks to the bandwagoneers, but not so much so that it’s at the expense of another team’s bottom line), and actual good and enjoyable hockey?

I think that even in the era of expansion and the salary cap, you can still get very enjoyable games and playoff series, but I also admit that the concept of forced parity throughout the league hurts the spirit of competition and sportsmanship.  So I’m just wondering where you think the perfect mix of those seemingly exclusive things lies.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 11/19/09 at 05:20 PM ET

JJ

You are claiming that the purpose of the salary cap is to bring about parity.  I do not believe that claim.  The purpose was to bring about increased ownership profits.  The NHL tried many arguments to sell their cause and parity was one that resonated with a large number of fans pretty well.

I am opposed to a salary cap because its primary benefit is increased ownership profits. As far as I am concerned that is not a benefit that matters to me.  I don`t care if somebody else makes more money.  I just want to see as much good hockey as I can.

There are other things that the CBA brought along with it beyond salary cap that also encourage good teams to be broken up.  The most significant one is the reduced age for free agency.  That makes it possible for teams to buy top players.  Under the previous CBA that was not possible.  Players had to be 31 before anyone could buy their rights.  At that point they have completed their best years.  Under the current CBA, you can buy a free agent player at as low as age 25.  In that case, their best years are almost certainly still to come.  In fact, it is now possible to buy a winning team.  Sure there is a cap on what you can spend, but now you can actually buy talented players before they hit their prime (assuming of course those players don`t sign lifetime deals like Ovechkin did and never hit the market).  This actually decreases parity.  The best markets (those free agents want to sign in) will be able to attract the top free agents when they are young enough to make a difference and all it takes is one superstar player to turn a franchise around.  There is yet to be a really strong example of this yet, but what happens when an NHL MVP in his mid-20s hits unrestricted free agency?  It will happen.  I am surprised it hasn`t really happened yet.  This gives the desired markets (New York, Los Angeles, Toronto maybe) a big advantage under this CBA.  I think it was written in part for that purpose.

Nevertheless, for sake of argument lets assume that parity really is the reason for the salary cap.  Was a lack of parity a problem?  It only existed on a short term level.  Teams could be better and teams could be worse than they can be now, but they wouldn`t stay that way.  It was very hard to bring in a new young core with the late draft picks that a top team had.  It was hard not to get a very good young core with the early draft picks that weak teams received.  Parity was already built into the system.  There was no clear prefered market.  Looking at the 90s, Edmonton, Pittsburgh, Montreal, NY Rangers, New Jersey, Colorado, Detroit and Dallas all won cups.  Some of these markets were big.  Some were not.  Anyone could win if they were run well.  Tampa Bay could win the cup.  East Rutherford, New Jersey could win the cup.  Denver, Colorado could win the cup.  New York had the highest payroll in the league and missed the playoffs for seven years running.  Payroll was not an advantage in and of itself.  You had to acquire a good young core to win.  When that core grew up, you had to pay that core. if they were any good, you won with that core and generated the revenue to pay them.  That was how it worked.  That was how it had worked in the 80s (Edmonton was the highest paid team in the NHL).  That was how it worked in the 70s (Montreal was the highest paid team in the NHL).  As far back as we can estimate payroll data, that is how it worked.

Winning was not caused by buying players.  Winning was cause by producing a good young talented core.  Once you had that core and started winning you had to pay for them, but it seemed that any market could afford to keep that core together long enough to win several Stanley Cups - if it was good enough.  Any market could do it.  The proof is that any market did do it.  Spending money without having a talented core of young players first failed.  It failed in Toronto.  If failed in post 1994 New York.  There was no clear parity problem.

Effectively what was done was the top off the league was chopped off and it was added to the bottom part of the league.  The top is not as good as it once was.  The bottom is better than it once was.  That didn`t make everyone a winner.  You still need to have a well-run team to win.  You still need to produce a young talented core.  There are still poorly run teams that will never seriously be able to win.  There are still a lot of potential bandwagon fans that do not support their team because they don`t think their team is any good.  I am not sure that there is a net gain from bandwagon fans.  Sure Pittsburgh has more fans today, but it is because Tampa Bay and Ottawa and Phoenix have less fans.  The biggest change that I see is that the best teams are weaker than they were.  The games between the best teams are weaker because the best teams are weaker.  I lose out.  I get less of the good games that I want.  The gain as far as I can see is that the owners (as a collective) are getting richer.  One problem is the owners are not a collective.  As some get richer, we still see many struggling to survive.  They took away the elite teams and didn`t find a workable economic model.  This is not the final solution.  There will be more tinkering and I am scared about it.  I expect it will only make the hockey I want further from the hockey that is offered to me.

Posted by PuckStopsHere on 11/19/09 at 05:48 PM ET

That’s probably among the most cogent things you’ve ever written.

The gain as far as I can see is that the owners (as a collective) are getting richer.  One problem is the owners are not a collective

They want to be a collective though.  That’s a big part about what the lockout was about.  They want to be treated as a collective so they are immune against antitrust lawsuits.  When a league is viewed as a collective of owners that are competing not against one another, but with other sports leagues, that’s where I think the drive for actual sportsmanship and integrity dies.  If all the owners are working together to make money, why wouldn’t they pick the cup winner in the preseason and just tinker with the game enough to make sure it happens (like what I suspect in the NBA)?

I agree with the point that there was parity in the pre-lockout era.  I use the Rangers as the best possible example of a team not being able to buy a cup.  I completely agree that good management is the key ingredient, and i too dislike the salary cap because it artificially limits players value in the interest of higher team profits.  The NHL does seem intent on the idea of the parity strength brought on by the cap and by creating younger free agents though.  That’s one of the big reason the league doesn’t like long term deals, because it allows teams to circumvent the rules they set in place to make sure a team couldn’t lock down enough high-priced free agents to stay on top for a very long time.

Posted by J.J. from Kansas on 11/19/09 at 07:02 PM ET

I’d just like to point out that expansion causes great teams, not mediocre teams.  To understand why, you need to understand that greatness in the NHL is just relative.  When the league expands (by which I mean adding more players, not necessarily more teams, although that’s obviously the easiest way to do it), it doesn’t make the best players any worse.  But it adds a whole bunch of players who aren’t as good, which makes the best players (and therefore the best teams) look better by comparison.

Or to put it another way: if you took the four best NHL teams and put them in their own league, call it the Super NHL, none of them would look like a great team any more.  They’re all roughly evenly matched, so they’ll all be somewhere close to .500 teams.  It’s only when they’re with the other 26 teams that they look like great teams.  So it logically follows that if you added all the AHL teams to that league as well, that would make those four best teams look even better still.

The whole “expansion caused lowest-common-denominator hockey” had the story completely backwards.  What happened is that there was a huge influx of very good hockey players from Europe, so the average player in the league was suddenly a lot better than he used to be.  It became harder for the superstars not because they had crappy players clutching and grabbing them, but because they were playing against much better opponents than before.

Posted by Ryan from Toronto on 11/19/09 at 10:10 PM ET