Edmonton Journal

Save the best for last, NHL — your fans will appreciate it

This early Capitals-Penguins clash proves new structure stinks, Dan Steinberg writes.

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WASHINGTON To complain about a league’s playoff format or a given year’s post-season matchups is, in the popular phrase, loser talk. It’s also a waste of time. But please indulge me in a few hundred words worth of Monday morning loser talk. Let’s acknowledg­e the obvious: There shouldn’t be an upcoming series between the Washington Capitals and Pittsburgh Penguins. Not yet, anyhow.

We’ve been complainin­g about this for three months, once it became clear that the Capitals, Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets were three of the five best teams in the NHL, and that two of them would be forced to meet in the first round, with the winner likely to immediatel­y face the league’s top team. Requiring your strongest performers to scratch each other’s eyes out a month shy of the championsh­ip round sounds like a great tactic for a high-school football coach, but it’s a curious way to organize a sports league.

The Caps and Penguins both won in the first round, and will face each other in the conference semifinal, starting Thursday. Seven other teams finished with at least 100 points; four have been eliminated. The secondroun­d matchups have all the logical consistenc­y of a thirdgrade­r’s Pynchon plot diagram.

The Penguins averaged the most goals per game and the Caps were third, while also allowing the fewest goals against. Pittsburgh had the league’s thirdbest power play; Washington’s was fourth. Washington was 41-11 when leading after two periods; the Penguins were 37-1-1. If you re-seeded teams by conference, the Caps would face No. 12 Ottawa, and the Penguins would face the No. 9 Rangers, and not one person would complain.

If the argument is that the Penguins and Caps will juice up an otherwise flavourles­s second round, well, wouldn’t it be better to put a jolt into the Eastern Conference final? If the argument is that only division rivals can stoke post-season excellence, well, Washington’s series with the Toronto Maple Leafs was about as excellent as playoff hockey can get, even though the teams had no post-season history. If the argument is that unpredicta­bility is what makes the playoffs great, I’m here to tell you that the NHL already is crammed full of unpredicta­bility, no matter how the bracket shakes out. At some point, a tiny bit of predictabi­lity might be nice.

The thing is, there is history here. The Caps and Penguins played in the second round in 2009, and there was a feeling the winner might go on to claim the Stanley Cup. The Penguins won and went on to claim the Stanley Cup. Then the Caps and Penguins played in the second round in 2016 — which was dumb, because they were the East’s two best teams — and there was a feeling that the winner might go on to claim the Stanley Cup. The Penguins won, and went on to claim the Stanley Cup.

It’s at the point where Caps general manager Brian MacLellan starts laughing before I even start spitting out my questions, because he knows they will be about existentia­l unfairness rather than the Lars Eller line.

“I’d like to see it reset after every round so that you get the best matchups at the end,” the GM said two months ago. “You’re going to see two good teams out … Even if it was happening in a different division, you don’t want to see those teams out right away. I don’t want to see one and two out. I want to see them meet when it’s even more tension and more at stake.”

We would like to see the best matchups at the biggest moments. Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin will never play for the Stanley Cup. But when their teams have the most points in the Eastern Conference — as they’ve done two seasons in a row — it’s both silly and selfdefeat­ing for them to battle now.

 ?? BRUCE BENNETT/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILES ?? Alex Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals and Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins will meet again in the playoffs when their series starts Thursday in Washington, D.C.
BRUCE BENNETT/THE ASSOCIATED PRESS/FILES Alex Ovechkin’s Washington Capitals and Sidney Crosby’s Pittsburgh Penguins will meet again in the playoffs when their series starts Thursday in Washington, D.C.

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