Realignment Reaction from CHI - "Wah Wah Wah"
Which makes me feel better about it.
Want to hear them wine about it? Make the jump...it might make you feel better.
“I don’t know how fair 16 teams in one conference and 14 in the other is." --Andrew Brunette. Ending a sentence with a preposition? For shame! I know...I forgot he was on their team this year too. He went on to uncover the real scare that has the Blackhawks shaking in their little moccasins:
“The hard part is one division is extremely strong and teams missing the playoffs could be getting 100 points or something and missing the playoffs." --Andrew Brunette
When he says "teams missing the play-offs" he means "WE might miss the play-offs even if we get 100 points or something". Chicago is looking at Detroit, Dallas, Nashville, and the new and improved St. Louis Blues and Minnesota Wild...and seeing some pretty stiff competition for making the play-offs.ESPN stated that they also lamented losing games against rival Vancouver...which makes sense, because Chicago owns the Canucks in regular season play...so why wouldn't they be angry about not getting to play them more often? But of course, they call it "softening the rivalry" or some crap.
“Whatever we lose with them we’ll gain with Minnesota or St. Louis or Dallas. Get Detroit going again.” --Patrick Sharp
Get Detroit going again? I'm confused, Patrick. Are you saying that some Blackhawks fans (many of whom believe the NHL was founded in 2009) are still buying into the Detroit-Chicago rivalry? Or perhaps you're saying since you've had to trade players, lose others to Free Agency, and bury others in Switzerland - that the players on the team don't quite get it yet?
Whatever the case...Chicago is none too happy about this realignment. Whether it's losing easy points against Vancouver or missing the play-offs because four teams in your Conference are better...the alignment has them squirming in their seats.
And I dig that.
Don't get me wrong, loathe the Hawks and their fans, but this article is just as applicable to the Wings. Plenty of us had similar concerns of East/West disparity in number of teams and how this would affect playoff races.
I get that...but isn't it nice to see that it has Chicago freaked out? That's what I was going for. @andre.boillot
@NOHS Drew If that ESPN article is what you're going off of, then you're setting the bar for "freaking out" pretty low. I've seen comments from most fanbases expressing the same concern. If you think this isn't a problem for the Wings - take the current pts/g averages for teams and extend it to 82 games (simplification, i know), we'd be 3rd in next years conference format, and only 6pts clear of 5th. I'll save my schadenfreude for the inevitable "Kane blacks out and punches stripper" headline.
@Reddy Yes, the team above us in the standings should really be worried about realignment. We're cool though, no worries here.
@andre.boillot@Reddy A team above us? The only reason 'they' are above 'us' is their OT/SO losses. I'm not too worried about the Lackhawks and their lack of defense and goaltending. The only things I'm worried about is the lack of production almost 3 months into the season from Z and the 3rd-year-in-a-row-lackluster PK.
@mrfluffy02@Reddy If you think adding Dallas and Minnesota doesn't up the competition level of the con-vision next year, I don't know what to tell you. As far as OT/SOL being the "only" reason that CHI is ahead of DET, as long as they're not tied with anyone in points, how they got them won't matter. Crawford is having him some sophomore slump this year...can't think of another young goalie that went through that. But don't worry about Z's production, he's only making $7m through '17-18.
I'm not saying that CHI is better than DET, I'm saying its silly to giggle at quotes bringing up concerns that every team in the new group should have, including us.
