Fisher: Playoff Problems
But two months of NHL and NBA playoff games pretty much every night is ridiculous. And it’s unfair to the best teams in each league, for very different reasons.
NHL playoffs
Beyda: Too many rules cause violence in the NHL to be overlooked
Eleven players were ejected over the course of first week of the NHL postseason—to six during the entire playoffs a year ago—and several have been suspended by league disciplinarian Brendan Shanahan in an attempt to keep hockey from fully turning into “Fight Club on Ice.” But the Stanley Cup Playoffs have resembled just that in the early going, and a sport that has been deeply questioning the role of fighting ever since the death of former enforcer Derek Boogaard at the age of 28 last summer now finds itself mired in one of the roughest postseasons in recent memory.
Beyda: There’s nothing quite like the NHL playoffs
Even though hockey may be less appreciated than football, basketball and baseball by the national media, the Stanley Cup playoffs are a spectacle unlike any other in American professional sports: so grueling, so exciting, so stressful that there’s really no good excuse to not tune in.
Sawhney: Why not institute a playoff draft?
I propose a “playoff draft” of sorts, where the highest seeds get rewarded with the opportunity to not only enjoy home-court or home-ice advantage, but also get to choose their first round matchup.