Understanding the NHL

[Sav25 1]

Hi

I'm still getting my head around how the NHL works. I get most of it, but I seem to always lose track of the scores etc and historical scores.

Is there a tracker or something that will show me (in some kind of chart) who won what against who?

Like almost tournament style, where the tracker will eventually filter down to a final?

Hope that makes sense! It's hard to get into it when you didn't watch it as a kid (British)

[Chadd 916]

I'm sure someone has made a chart at some point, but it's not a common way to show what has happened over the season. Partly because that chart would have to include every team and be extremely large and hard to follow.

As for a tournament style bracket, it doesn't really apply in the NHL as they re-seed at the start of every playoff round.

[Sav25 1]

I'm sure someone has made a chart at some point, but it's not a common way to show what has happened over the season. Partly because that chart would have to include every team and be extremely large and hard to follow.

As for a tournament style bracket, it doesn't really apply in the NHL as they re-seed at the start of every playoff round.

*Sigh* I still don't fully understand it. It's the large number of teams and games that confuse things. If anyone knows where there is an idiots guide - I'd be very grateful

[chippa13 1844]

I'll give this a whirl.

The league is split into 2 conferences and each conference is split into 3 divisions. The teams play an 82 game season and earn 2 points for each win and 1 point for an overtime or shootout loss. The teams with the most points in each division are seeded 1, 2, and 3 in their conference based on points. The next top 5 teams in the conference are then seeded 4 thru 8.

The playoffs then start in each conference with best of seven series with the matchups being 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, and 4-5. The four remaining teams after that round are then reseeded so that the top remaining seed plays a best of seven series against the worst remaining seed and the two middle seeds play each other. For example, if seeds 1, 4, 6, and 7 won their series in the first round then the matchups for the second round would be 1-7 and 4-6. After this round the two remaining teams would meet up in the Conference Finals for a best of seven series. The winner of that round then faces the winner of the other Conference Finals in the Stanley Cup Finals for a best of seven series with the winner hoisting the Cup.

[shotty 7]

what exactly are you attempting to do? if all you want to do is track results, check out nhl.com, click on "schedule" and you can sort it by day, week, month and season.

as for the schedule, there's 30 teams and two conferences (15 teams each). each conference has three divisions (5 teams each). the schedule is set up to have divisional teams play each other more often (6 games vs each divisional team) than the rest of the teams. this creates "rivalries"

and keeps the games regional, lowering travel times/costs. so a team plays each team in its division 6 times, taking up 24 games in the season. each team plays every other team outside their division, but within their conference 4 times (40 games). then they have 18 games to play 15 teams in the other conference. 41 games at home 41 games away.

in the playoffs, teams are seeded by season points (2 for a win, 1 for OT or shootout loss). 16 teams make the playoffs. 8 from each side. divisional winners get the top three seeds regardles of points (example: pittsburgh, tampa bay and boston win their respective divisions and are ranked 1, 2, 3 respectively, even though, say washington and philadelphia finish with more points)... this allows each division to be represented in the playoffs. #1 ranked team plays #8, #2 plays #7, #3 plays #6 and #4 plays #5. as chadd said, the seeding is realigned every series to pit the highest standing seed against the lowest standing seed (example: #1 beats #8, #7 beats #2, #3 beats #6 and #5 beats #4.... 2nd round looks like this: #1 vs #7, #3 vs #5) with the higher seeded team getting "home ice advantage" all the way through the playoffs (another perk to winning the divison...games 1,2,5,7 at home).

[17D1998 1]

There's wikipedia too for historical games and stats and just about everything basically

[Sav25 1]

Thanks for the replies.

How do 'most' fans watch the season? Do they concentrate on their division (of their team) or do most generally try and follow all games?

I've been following the flyers a bit recently, but it would be pretty tough to keep a close grip on other divisions - because of the sheer amount of games played.

[wrangler 157]

Thanks for the replies.

How do 'most' fans watch the season? Do they concentrate on their division (of their team) or do most generally try and follow all games?

I've been following the flyers a bit recently, but it would be pretty tough to keep a close grip on other divisions - because of the sheer amount of games played.

I think a lot of us follow our teams, and the other teams that are competing with us for division titles and playoff spots.

You can look at http://espn.go.com/nhl/standings to see the standings, the first 8 teams in each division at the end of the season will be in the playoffs. If you click on "Division" at the upper left of the standings, you'll see the division rankings. You can click on any team to go to the team page, or try out any other menu options. You can get each team's schedule and scores for the year that way, too.

[Sav25 1]

I think a lot of us follow our teams, and the other teams that are competing with us for division titles and playoff spots.

You can look at http://espn.go.com/nhl/standings to see the standings, the first 8 teams in each division at the end of the season will be in the playoffs. If you click on "Division" at the upper left of the standings, you'll see the division rankings. You can click on any team to go to the team page, or try out any other menu options. You can get each team's schedule and scores for the year that way, too.

Hey thanks - that page is very useful to get an idea of who's doing well.

Ok i'm going to try and follow Flyers some more then. Do they have any historical rivals, regardless of division positions?

[lampliter87 8]

Traditionally they've been "rivals" with Pittsburgh.

[chippa13 1844]

They also have a bit of a rivalry with the Bruins that goes back to the days of the Broad Street Bullies and the Big Bad Bruins.

[wrangler 157]

Hey thanks - that page is very useful to get an idea of who's doing well.

Ok i'm going to try and follow Flyers some more then. Do they have any historical rivals, regardless of division positions?

You're quite welcome, that's why we're here. I use that website all the time as a starting point to find out NHL info.

As chippa13 mentioned, they've got some history where they were called the "Broad Street Bullies", which is something you could google.

[Chadd 916]

Thanks for the replies.

How do 'most' fans watch the season? Do they concentrate on their division (of their team) or do most generally try and follow all games?

I've been following the flyers a bit recently, but it would be pretty tough to keep a close grip on other divisions - because of the sheer amount of games played.

The vast majority of fans only care about their team and aren't hockey fans as much as they are fans of the local team. Some of us just want to see a good game and don't really care who it is, as long as it is entertaining.

[wrangler 157]

Here's a Flyers link for you, Sav25.

http://www.csnphilly.com/pages/flyers

[Sav25 1]

The vast majority of fans only care about their team and aren't hockey fans as much as they are fans of the local team. Some of us just want to see a good game and don't really care who it is, as long as it is entertaining.

I can see what you mean - watched the Capitals-Panthers game this morning (highlights) and it was a good game from what I can tell - lot of hustle!

[elevation 1]

Sav!...wait until you want to find out draftings and trades! That will take a while...As Europeans we first have to perceive 'The Show' as gigantic business. Huge distances and big popularity/money determin a high professional organisation. Thogh the KHL bothers, there's no comparison with our leagues...statistics, rumors, stars,'The Code'...Welcome to the NHL! ;-)

[jschlenske 0]

Another site you can go to for info is tsn. Usually they have the news before espn.

http://www.tsn.ca/nhl/