Fast forward to 1:45.

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It creates unnecessary breaks between games due to travel. Of course, my ideal format for all sports with postseason series is a 2-3-2 played as quickly as possible, with back-to-backs on the twos and extra rest between rounds. It probably wouldn't work in hockey, but I'd like to see it instituted in baseball.

Takes away the whole point of home ice advantage. Shouldn't happen in any sport, IMO.

A lower seeded team should never have the opportunity to have more home games than a higher seed at any point in a round.

Your plan is awful. Sorry.

The main issue I was trying to address is that in these sports, each round takes SO ****ING LONG to finish that the playoffs end up marginalizing the regular season. A better idea would be to just cut the length of the early rounds to five games, but that doesn't make anyone any money, so it won't happen.

You want...less playoff hockey? Does not compute.

Would you rather it be like the coin flip games? In the NBA the best team win more often than not and that's a good thing.

The "good news" is at least in this case, Chicago lost a really good player.

The problem is when bad players take cheap shots at good players. When Boston loses Nathan Horton, and the Canucks lose some scrub to suspension for a few games, that's not a fair trade. It's what really pisses me off about the Saints' super bowl run and I almost wish the NFL would put an asterisk on it.

Chicago is losing a good player for three games.

St. Louis is losing their captain for likely much more than three games.

There's nothing "good" about this.

I can come back to this thread in mid/late May and feel like I didn't miss much. Is that a good thing? Keep in mind, I'm a casual that doesn't usually pay attention to the playoffs until the conference finals. I just happen to have Stars and Blues fans in my life that have been on me about keeping track this year. It isn't a hockey thing, it's a scheduling thing because I feel the same way about the NBA, and they're even worse about it.

I said that mostly sarcastically. Mostly to say that many will make a small deal out of this and insist that both teams will be losing good players. But at least in this case, there's some small bit of parity. A few years ago, the Bruins lost a superstar while the other team lost a scrub. In New Orleans, the Saints arguably crippled the most important player on the field. Even in baseball, unbelievable that a guy charging the mound can break a pitcher's collarbone and only miss a week while the other guy misses the rest of the season.

Luckily, in sports we've mostly avoided Tonya Harding scenarios. But especially in today's game, it's becoming easier to do.

Sports often become better when they cater to casual fans that don't pay attention until the finals, after all.

Poor Tampa Bay. They're in trouble.

Heard they got screwed out of a goal? Should be tied.

Yep.

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