RE: NHL Expansion - how many new teams? 2, 4, 6 ?
That plan would not work because it would grossly dilute the talent.
Everyone always complains about the NHL's expansion in the 90s. However, they always miss the primary point. The problem is not that they went to a bunch of warm weather cities with fairweather fans.
Don't get me wrong, there were certainly problems associated with bringing in so many novice fan bases. A very high percentage of those fans had/have a lot to learn about the game, it's strategies, and history/traditions. However, the primary problem was that the NHL expanded by nine teams in a decade. In 1990, the NHL had 21 teams. By the 2000–01 season the league had ballooned to 30 teams. That is a ridiculous amount of greed and it caused all kinds of problems for the quality of play within the league itself.
There simply was not (is not?) enough NHL caliber players to fill 30 rosters.
A lot of career minor leaguers were thrust into prominent roles on NHL teams throughout the 90s. Naturally, and predictably, when those career minor leaguers, who were a few inches too small and a step or two too slow, were facing larger and more talented athletes, they resorted to cheating in the form of clutching and grabbing.
Not that I blame them at all. What would you do if you were an AHL defenseman and you were trying to stop a Wayne Gretzky or Mario Lemieux or a Pavel Bure screaming down the boards at breakneck speed? You know you couldn't skate with them. You know that you had no hope of getting the puck off of them. So you reached out and grabbed them and took your chances that the official wouldn't call it every single time for 60 minutes.
It worked. In time, the officials called things like holding/hooking/interference less frequently - then FAR less frequently - because nobody wants to watch a special teams battle for 60 minutes.
Naturally, because it did work, coaches started to take notice and being the bright guys that they are, they began to design entire systems built around manipulating the rules to slow down the game's best players. That was good for those coaches' careers but it was HORRIBLE for the entertainment value for the league as a whole.
Before long that combination led to the "Dead Puck Era" which basically crippled scoring in the sport for more than a decade. For example, in the 2004 Stanley Cup finals, near the end of the DPE, there were ZERO lead changes in the entire seven game series. That is almost unfathomable and horrible to watch. The ratings during that time prove as much.
Its proponents talk about the Sunbelt expansion as being a great idea because of all the new markets it introduced to the sport. However, what difference does that make if the product you're selling them is a unwatchable? How appealing can a game be for novices if every night the score is 1–0 or 2–1?
I absolutely love the sport and watch it religiously. However, even I get turned off by low-scoring games every single night. This year's playoffs were perfect example of that. Chicago and Tampa are both outstanding teams and they each deserved to be in the Stanley Cup finals. Also, more to the point, they each play hockey the proper way – through skating and skill. They don't try to goon their way through the playoffs.
However, they also each come from the Detroit Redwings school of interference at every opportunity and it hurts the game, which is built on creating scoring opportunities by creating pressure through turnovers. If you allow teams to consistently, umm, block - for lack of a better word - attacking forecheckers, that limits turnovers; which, in turn, limits scoring opportunities. That, in turn, makes the game less entertaining.
Also, the entertainment value of the playoffs overall was horrible. People without a horse in the race are simply not going to watch 2–1 hockey games every night. You have to give them a reason to tune in and that reason is scoring. The NHL regularly loses sight of that simple concept and the "Dead Puck Era" is what began that phenomenon.
What is less clear to me is why the league has not been more proactive in making sure it never again slips back into that unwatchable scoring coma?
Thirty-two teams is inevitable. Anything more than that would be a horrible mistake.
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