Dude, what I’ve been complaining about for a long time is that the league kept us out of the playoffs and was not going to have the play in teams in the lottery. But they changed that. And they even changed which teams would qualify for the extended playoffs. And then they weren’t playoffs but play in rounds. But they count statically as playoff games. And that they’ve monkeyed with the lottery several times. Including one format only for the 7 non playoff teams but with a maximum number of slots you could move: and in that scenario we were the first team that wouldn’t be able to win 1st overall if we won the lottery.
So you want to believe there is no manipulation fine. But there is plenty on the record of how the NHL did that. The fact that we are having a two phase lottery is just another example. The fact that the 2nd phase won 1st overall is probably just a magical coincidence.
The league even turned the host cities into a dog and pony show.
No manipulation my ass.
- Queenie_5_hole
Theres so much wrong with almost everything you just said, its not even worth trying to counter everything because it'll take too long. The fact that you are acting like the ideas that flew around about how everything was going to work is the league manipulating everything. Hey guess what, they better have had multiple options to use, and i bet theres more ideas/options that they had that we dont even know about. Its just not worth it. People will always find a way to complain about anything, no matter what happens. Its absurd
EDIT: Actually wait. I'll counter essentially everything you just said.
-Your entire first paragraph is incredibly stupid. Lets see if you can understand. Everything you listed is the league threwing around and pitching different ideas about how to run the playoffs or the lottery, perfectly standard procedure when trying to decide how to go about this, as one option would have been dumb. NOTHING you said was confirmed/announced to be officially happening therefore NOTHING was changed to "keep us out of the playoffs". They had setups for 16, 20, 22, and 24 team formats. Personally i think 20 or 22 would've been best. Once again your lottery complaints were just options that they were throwing around that could have been used, once again, nothing was changed. The specific example you gave was them literally the possibility of using the option of a lottery THAT THEY USED IN THE PAST. They didnt come up with it just to (frank) over the devils since they would've been the first team that couldnt get #1. Everything in this paragraph you wrote is just wrong. I think you need to stop taking the ideas that were reported the NHL was considering as if they were definitely doing that then changed things. Because they didnt, they just went with a different option. 2 different things. Throwing around multiple options/ideas then finally choosing one isnt changing things. Its making an actual decision.
-Your second paragraph is interesting. I personally think it was stupid that they did 2 lotteries instead of waiting until the play-in round was done to do the lottery. But was it manipulation? Hell no, they just wanted a chance to try to make more money. Was it a magical coincidence that the placeholder won the top pick? Actually no, in fact it was the highest mathematical outcome tied with Ottawa at 25%. So there was a 50% chance that a placeholder or the Sens were picking #1. Not a magical coincidence, just blatant math and the most probable outcome. I would've been more surprised if they didnt get a top 3 pick than i was when they got the #1
-Third, how did the NHL turn the host city into a dog and pony show? It was reported for a while that Vegas and Vancouver were the favorites, with multiple other cities as backups. Vegas backed out last minute because the cities officials went to the NHL and told them they felt it was unsafe with the major rise in covid cases in their state. And Vancouver backed out because they couldnt come to an agreement with the league on how to handle covid cases while inside the bubble. So please tell me how its the NHL's fault that the cities themselves backed out of being host cities at the last minute leading to the league needing to scramble to get 2 backup cities to go? In fact, the options they ended up going with were probably the best 2, both in Canada was absolutely the way to go.
Once again, people are just trying to cherry-pick things without doing actual research just to have something to complain about. Its crazy the length people will try to take to complain about literally anything, no matter what happens. I can guarantee you would be complaining no matter what the league decided to do, if it didnt completely benefit the Devils. As i said before, im done with this pointless conversation.