Follow @james_tanner123 The NHL is seemingly all but ready to announce the addition of a 32nd franchise in Seattle, Washington.
The League is at near full parity, the standings (helped by the loser point and the salary cap) are so random they might as well be decided by lottery, the Golden Knights have shown that you can build a good team out of cast-offs and under-used players, and almost every team has a Josh Leivo, a good player who doesn't even get to play due to falling into an unfavorable contract category and skill level.
So expansion makes total sense.
But one team isn't enough.
I don't think a professional sports league is well served by having as much parity as the NHL currently has. It's a good thing that there isn't a small market / big market divide that prevents all but eight teams from having a chance to compete (i.e baseball) but the drawback to that is that you get a lot of parity. Which means near random standings.
In the NHL, studies have shown that skill doesn't overtake luck as the biggest factor in determining the standings until there is a sample size of roughly 70 games. Since there are only 82 games in a season, and since there are always going to be anomalies, such a thin line between chance and luck means that every year undeserving teams will make the playoffs and good teams will miss them.
Statistically, or even by looking at their rosters, Edmonton, Carolina, Montreal, Calgary and Columbus should all probably be in the playoffs this year. That's almost 33% of the amount of teams that make the Playoffs.
It's nice when a team gets lucky, but if five of what should be the best teams fail to make the playoffs, it's worth asking if there is too much luck involved. People dedicate their lives to this game, and I don't think it's a bad idea to try to set it up so that skill wins out over luck more than it currently does.
You could accomplish this in a few ways. First, the NHL needs to do a real crack down on penalties. Not a fake one that lasts two weeks. You shouldn't get away with three or four slashes before you get called. You shouldn't get a free pass to commit a penalty just because your team is already on the PK and the game is close. Etc. I think more power-plays would allow skill teams to win more, but it would also help to offset the fact that right now, the team that scores first usually wins, and a team with a lead after two ALWAYS wins.
Another thing the NHL can do is go back to ref eye-test only offsides, and instruct them to let anything too close go, since the rule is designed to prevent cheating, not choke offense out of the game.
Also, the NHL should drop the loser point. But no three-point BS either. Two points for a win, zero points for a loss. Does it suck to get nothing out of a random O.T toss up? Damn right it does, so now you have incentive to win in regulation and everyone is happier for it.
Right now, teams play for OT because 3vs3, teams are pretty even. OT is random, and if you're the weaker team, you have a better chance of winning in OT than in Regulation.
All this will help make the games more existing, but it will also cut down on the amount of times crappy teams can get a lead and trap the life out of the game.
But the biggest thing the NHL can do to fix the problem of parity is to expand by five more teams, to a total of 36. This will help insure that there are some really crappy teams, it will put scoring up, and it will ensure that no players like Josh Leivo have their careers put on hold as teams treat them like overpaid mascots.
With 36 teams, the NHL can split into two 18 teams leagues that play for the Stanley Cup but, like the MLB, don't otherwise play each other.
Parity would be crushed, luck would be less of a factor, there would be more scoring, the players would make more money, there'd be way more jobs, the NHL would make a fortune and we could probably use this plan to avoid the next labour stoppage.
It's clear the NHL could add another two or three teams without suffering any loss of quality. Add five and let's make the NHL fun again. Random standings are the worst.