Just last week, the NHL regular season came to a seemingly abrupt end, due to the shortened and compacted season. The season seemed like a blur but here we are, all the teams are set and the race has begun to claim the beautiful, the magnificent, the glorious Stanley Cup. Caleb and I have already analyzed all the first round matchups and there is really nothing much left to do at this point but watch everything unfold. However, we did find a pretty serious point of contention that is likely a very common thing across the states, so we decided to take up the task of duking it out over which Conference overall is better and more skillfully represented in the playoffs, the East or the West. So without further ado, let's tie down the jersey, drop the gloves and start throwin' some punches; this train just might run off the tracks!
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Eric - Alright Caleb, it's time to settle this. To begin, I am actually quite shocked about your low opinion of the Eastern Conference. Could the negativity be stemming from the poor showing of the Philadelphia Flyers this season? I think that might be a possibility. We both know enough about hockey to know that the regular season and the playoffs are almost two entirely different things. In the regular season, the teams that have the big names and the most skill tend to land themselves into the top spots in each conference, leaving everyone else behind with the hope that they can get a high draft pick to get some star talent for themselves. Once the playoffs start, checking gets tighter, defense increases, greater care is given over handling the puck in the offensive zone, goalies are zoned in and coaching decisions carry a ton of weight. Home ice is also much more of an advantage in the playoffs and many times is the deciding factor in a series. When each team in each conference is assessed against these criteria, one conference stands clear above the other one, and that is the East. For the sake of not going too in depth right away, I will just lay down the simple reasons why the East has better teams in the playoffs than the West. 1) The East has better coaches (i.e. Dan Bylsma, Michel Therrien, Randy Carlyle, Claude Julien, Paul MacLean, John Tortorella and even Adam Oates), 2) the East plays a much more gritty and tough style of hockey, 3) the East has slightly better goaltending and 4) the East has some of the hardest Arena's to win in in the league. I am sure through the rest of the showdown, we will each go more in depth about each of those so I will give it a rest for now and give you an opportunity to give your side.
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Caleb - Happy Spring everyone. Ok, you mentioned that you thought that I was biased against the East because of bitterness because the Flyers didn't make the playoffs. However, throughout your argument you used extremely vague and biased arguments for the East. 1) The East has better coaches? Hockey is easily the most difficult of the big 4 sports to gauge coaching impact. Joel Quenneville, Ken Hitchcock, Mike Babcock, Darryl Sutter. There, see I can name coaches too. Also, let's not put Adam Oates or Paul MacLean into that conversation. MacLean and Oates are both in their second season as coaches. Let's not be ridiculous. 2) Your second argument holds a bit of weight. True the East does historically have a more defensive minded game. However, the Kings beat the Devils in the East last season at their own game to claim the cup. The best teams in the West this season are centered around solid goaltending and team defense. Oh yeah, and they just happen to have unbelievably dynamic offensive talent to top it off. 3) The goaltenders for the top 8 teams in the West: Crawford/Emery, Hiller, Luongo (not as elite), Halak/Elliot, Quick, Niemi, Howard and Backstrom. Further, Kiprusoff, Rinne and Bobrovsky are sitting at home after fantastic seasons. The East has better goaltending? Really? The Penguins only downside is their goaltending this postseason, Price has a 2.59 GAA and Holtby is the best of the average goaltenders in the league. Those are the top three teams in the East this year according to the standings. Clearly, the West holds a crystal clear advantage between the pipes. 4) Another vague generalization without any backing. Not going to bother with that one. Finally, if each team in the East played their respective seed in the West, I would put money on the West winning 6 out of the 8 series. There are 4 legit title contenders in the West. The East has one. Continue.
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Eric - You seem to have not read my section too carefully because you breezed right over "For the sake of not going too in depth right away". Had I gone in depth and expanded on each argument I would have wrote an entire article for my first argument. Let's try to read this one a little closer. I agree it is difficult to gauge coaches impact in the NHL. 1) The reason I put Adam Oates and Paul MacLean in the equation is because of what they accomplished this season. Oates took a floundering Capitals team and resurrected it and now holds a 2-0 lead on the Rangers who were red hot entering the post season. Paul MacLean held his team in the playoff race through the season without Craig Andersen, Jason Spezza, Erik Karlsson and Milan Michalek. Those are the top 4 players on the Senators. They had to dig deep into their farm system to grab guys like Zibanejad, Pageau (who just knotched a hat trick), Dziurzynski, and Stone among others. There aren't too many coaches who could have kept this team in the hunt so MacLean deserves a ton of credit. Darryl Sutter has been coaching a team with arguably the best talent in the league over the past couple seasons and other than one hot month last year that happened to be in the playoffs, he has underperformed. 2) To follow up on that, the Kings beat the Devils because they were riding on the immense momentum they had. Let's look at the hits and blocks totals this year for the 8 teams represented from each conference: East: 9951 hits, 5833 blocks - West: 8427 hits, 5156 blocks. I rest my case on the East playing a much more physical and defensive brand of hockey. 3) We are
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talking about the 8 playoff teams so lets stick to that even though I don't think you looked at how bad Kiprusoff was this year - possibly the worst goalie. Crawford and Emery have never been good until this year so they have a lot to prove before they are considered elite goalies, Hiller is great, Luongo is not, Halak had an up and down season as did Elliot. Quick was not nearly as good this year. Niemi is great, Howard is good on a bad defensive team and Backstrom is inconsistent on a very inconsistent team. Lunqvist is the best goaltender in the league, Andersen was lights out. Fleury is inconsistent but when on his game is a top 5 goalie. Holtby is up and coming and was lights out last year in the playoffs and looks to be doing that same this year. Rask was phenomenal filling the Thomas-sized hole in Boston, Toronto - let's not go there, and Carey Price showed his potential in the first half. Going with the respective seeds playing each other in the East and the West: Pens > Hawks, Ducks > Habs, Caps > Nucks, Bruins > Blues, Kings > Leafs, Sharks > Rangers, Sens > Wings, Isles > Wild. 5 out of 8 for East. Go!
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Caleb - After last night, I hope we can put to bed the argument of Fleury being a top 5 goaltender. Was he a few years back? I would say so. However, his playoff performances in 2012 and 2013 have taken him out of that equation. No top 5 goaltender can be labeled as inconsistent. That's like saying besides the games when Vick throws 3 interceptions he is a top 5 QB. Further, the Pens lackluster performance against the Isles translates to a 5 game series loss to the Blackhawks if they met tomorrow. With the addition of "all the best captains from around the league", even I thought the Pens couldn't be stopped. So far in the playoffs there are two teams in the EAST better than the Pens. Does the East play a more physical and defensive brand of hockey? According to the stats yes. However, they also play a much different style of hockey than the West. The East has much higher block statistics because of their "half court" style of play. The West has historically been a quicker "fast-break" style of conference which translates to more goals off the odd-man rush which necessitates less blocked shots. One thing we can agree on: Lundqvist is the best goaltender in hockey. As we spoke about earlier, hockey is all about streaks and according to your coaching argument, we are talking about what has happened this year. Oates has been a great coach this season? Sure. Crawford/Emery have been great goaltenders this season as well. Have
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they proved themselves over their career? Not yet. But if we talk about first year coaches then we can talk about 2013 goalies. About your Kings argument, "other than one hot month last year that happened to be in the playoffs" is comical. Putting together their team before the 2011-2012 season, the Kings took all season to grow accustomed to their brand new lineup. Then they got hot at the right time and dominated the league on their way to winning the cup. That sounds like a winning formula and a solid coaching effort to me. How about Niemi? Shunned by the Blackhawks after winning them the cup, he's now finally pushed a talented San Jose team past the first round. Watch out for San Jose.
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Eric - I definitely have to concede pretty much any argument about the Penguins and Fleury at this point as they are getting absolutely dominated by an inexperienced Islanders team. I will end it there before I rant for paragraphs on end. It is true that both conferences play different styles of hockey and that historically, the West has proven better as is evidenced by their dominance in inter-conference play. However, last year the East took significant steps to changing that pattern and has been steadily improving each and every year to the point where the NY Islanders and Toronto Maple Leafs both now have very legitimate and strong playoff teams. The Islanders are proving to the world right now that they are a legitimate team, worthy of respect. Toronto is hanging in tough with an extremely experienced Bruins club and is one solid goaltender away from being a top team in the league. Streaks do play a huge part in success but you can't use streaks to grade teams in each conference when assessing which conference is better. The Kings had a lackluster season last year but got everything together at the right time and the result was a Stanley Cup. Everyone thought they would continue that dominance this season because they finally found that chemistry. Did they? No. They actually spent a lot of the season near the bottom of the West and made it in simply because they were not as bad as Phoenix, Dallas, Calgary, Columbus, Colorado, Edmonton, etc (who outside of Columbus were all really, really bad this year) and were able to string some wins together in thesecond half. Sure, San Jose looks to be completely
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dominant right now, but they played against a really weak Vancouver team who, though they did finish 3rd in the West, did so with an extremely unimpressive season in the second worst division in the league. Detroit also had an extremely unimpressive season, especially when you consider the experience and talent on that team. For most of the last couple weeks of the season, they didn't even look like they were going to make the playoffs! St. Louis plays the best defense of any team in the league but does so at the cost of any legitimate offense. They rely too much on keeping the puck out of their net that sometimes they forget that they need to score too. And if their goaltender happens to have one mediocre to bad game, it's an automatic loss. To me, the only three legitimate Cup Contenders are Chicago, Anaheim and San Jose. Bring us to the finish line!
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Caleb - I agree that the Canucks didn't deserve the 3rd seed. However, Washington, the third seed in the East achieved the third seed by slipping through truly the worst division in hockey. The Southeast division was the only division in the league to only put one team into the playoffs! You, me and John Daly could put together a squad with enough talent to win the Southeast. While the Islanders are proving themselves to be somewhat legitimate, I would also argue that Pittsburgh is playing a large part in the success of the Islanders. Playing straight into the Islanders strengths and not making any changes game to game, the number one seed in the East is showing that maybe the East isn't so strong after all. You agreed that the West has three legitimate title contenders. So, let's take a look at what the East brings to the table. The Islanders, just like the Flyers from last year, are defying the odds by dictating the play against Pittsburgh. Will New York come out of this series? Possibly in seven. But just like Philadelphia in 2012, their second round opponent will expose the weaknesses that Pittsburgh couldn't. Ottawa has been a pleasant surprise during this first round. A solid team with decent talent and depth, I could see them possibly making the Eastern Conference finals on the back of Anderson. That being said, they are not a title contender quite yet. The Rangers scoring is too inconsistent for them to win a series against any of the West contenders. As much as I'd like to think they have a shot, they have proven all-year long that they don't have the firepower to win. Like you said, Toronto is 2 years and a solid goaltender away from being ready. If Washington finds a way to escape from the Rangers, they won't make it any further. A solid team with above average talent offensively, they don't have the defensive prowess
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to hold the East, much less any team in the West in check. Montreal played themselves out of the playoffs in Game 4 of their series with Ottawa. Up 2-0 in the 3rd, Montreal proved that any team who relies on an offensive defenseman to provide the bulk of their pointage will fall short. Who are we left with? A shaky Pittsburgh team who I still consider a title contender and a Boston team that has the potential to make some noise. If Pittsburgh can find themselves, that leaves 2 legitimate title contenders in the East. You stated yourself that you believe there are 3 legit contenders in the West. It looks like we have a winner. Go Kings.
Well Sports Eye View Community, which conference do you think has the best teams represented in the playoffs? Leave your comments in the comments section and drop your vote on the poll in the top right section of the blog! Only time will tell who comes out victorious.
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