It's not just the East coast that is riled up, Paul. But, Toronto has an excellent point.
They likely will finish in the top three of the conference yet not have home ice in the first round. This makes ZERO sense. In fact, two teams with LESS points would have home ice, the Islanders and Washington. Yeah, how about that regular season.
And let's not get into discussing having heavyweight series like Winnipeg/Nashville or Washington/Pittsburgh in the first two rounds. No thanks.
I'm firmly with those who would like to see the 1-8 seeding return.
I think you're in a minority with your feelings on the playoff format Paul. Most fans don't like it and for good reason, though I do agree that their isn't much point in complaining about it. If you want to win a cup, you're going to have to go through the best teams anyway, but it does matter in what round you play someone. Ask Winnipeg after last years conference final. I do like the new format slightly better than the previous six division format, where the three division winners automatically got the first three seeds. It never seemed to fail that at least one lousy team who barely would've made the playoffs otherwise, gets a high seed and home ice, basically getting rewarded for playing in a crappy division. Call me old fashion, but I'd rather see the two best teams in each conference go at it in the conference finals than in the second round.
None of this 1-16 playoff format crap a lot of people throw around either. You think people whine about the playoff format now...The first time a New York, Pittsburgh, Boston, or Toronto has to fly out to California or Western Canada for a first round PO match up, they'll be the first screaming to go back to conference specific brackets.
