NHL Playoffs are As Advertised

The NHL Playoffs is the greatest post season tournament in the world that very few in America seem to care about. We are in a sports society where 78,000 fans will show up to watch the University of Alabama football team practice, but on Sat. night when 3 of the 4 NHL playoff games involving major market teams from Chicago, NY,  and Boston all go into OT more people tune in to watch a struggling Mavs team take on a Kobe-less Lakes squad (and Lamar Odom was at home watching Say Yes to the Dress re-runs with Khloe).

And I can tell you exactly why. But before I do that let's just take a quick glance at what most sports fans have been missing so far this season.

1. Could we have two teams in the same season come back from down 0-3? The Pittsburgh Penguins (called the most talented team in the NHL when healthy by Barry Melrose on my show) seemed to have everything going right only to have it go completely wrong in the first 3 games against the Philadelphia Flyers. It hasn't been for a lack of putting the puck in the net (for those that are counting 50 goals have been registered in 5 games so far) but a lack of defense and solid goaltending AFTER the first period has been the issue.
Now they seem to have found their stride only giving up 5 goals in the last two games, and scoring 13. I love how these series in all of post-season sports can shift and change. The Flyers were up 3-0 at home and leading 3-2 in the 1st period of Game 4. This thing was over. Forty-Five mine of game clock time later it was a 10-3 embarrassment and the series was going back to Pittsburgh. The Penguins go home and win a defensive effort (who knew they play defense in PA?!) 3-2. NOW we go to Game 6 and Flyers fans may be getting a bit nervous. The last time they saw these two teams in their building the Penguins scored 8 consecutive goals to end the scoring for the game. A win for Pittsburgh on Sunday and we go BACK to the Penguins home ice for a decisive game 7. Funny how quickly 3-0 can turn into uh oh...
And that brings us to the Vancouver Canucks (can a guy drop a Russian Rocket Reference here!) who nearly became the first team ever to win the Presidents Trophy for most points in a regular season and go down in a 4-0 sweep in the first series. But the tides have changed there as well. Henrik and Daniel Sedin are Swedish twin brother who act as one unit. They even negotiate their contracts together to ensure they will play for the same team. Henrik, the leading scorer of the two, had missed 12 consecutive games with concussion symptoms. What happens when you take a pair of twins who have played hockey their entire life together and separate them in the playoffs? It's kind of like Lebron playing basketball without the use of his left arm. And your teams goes down 0-3 to the lowly 8 seed Kings. But in that decisive Game 4 sweep opportunity in L.A. Henrik came back. The Canucks got the win, and now we go back to Vancouver (which is known as one of the best home ice advantages in all of the NHL... that is when the twins are playing together and Lebron has both arms available). Could we be headed again for that all important final home game for the underdog in Game 6? We'll see...

2. Speaking of home ice advantage in the playoffs, where has it gone? Vancouver and Pittsburgh didn't help this stat by going down 0-3, two of those games being at home, but right now road teams hold a record of 21-13 so far in these playoffs. So maybe the Kings will be better off with 2 of the final 3 possible games being played in Vancouver. What gives? Extra confidence on the road? Shutting up the crowd? The joy of hearing boo-birds rain down on the home team? Whatever it is it is difficult to explain. The one round home ice tends to hold true is the 1st round with the more lopsided match ups. But either way it's going to be a lot of fun.

3. No Sweeps. How many Game 7's? So we've been at this thing for a week and a half. Over 8 series 34 games have been played and only one series is complete with last nights victory for the Nashville Predators (if Cary Underwood hung out near my locker room I'd be motivated to be the first to win the series as well).  All the Western Conference series are lopsided 3-1 affairs right now, but that includes the #1 seed Canucks gaining confidence as they head home for Game 5 and a ridiculously close series between Chicago and Pheonix. I think the St. Louis series against the Sharks will wrap up in the next game, maybe 2, but don't count the #6 Blackhawks out of anything (more on this in the next segment). In the east its a different story. Three series are knotted at 2-2 and have turned into a best of 3. And you already know about the drama unfolding in the 3-2 series that is Flyers vs. Pens. Could we see all 4 series go to Game 7 in the east? I think so.

4. And with tight series come tight games. Ten of the 34 games have gone to sudden death overtime. Remember how I said don't count the Blackhawks out about 2.7 seconds ago? All four games in that series that is at 3-1 have gone to OT. The Hawks are two kick saves, one timely body check and a sneeze of one fan away from having won this thing 4-0! And 23 of the 34 games have been decided by one goal. Bottom line... don't turn any of these off before they're over, unless the Penguins score five unanswered goals in the 2nd period. Then turn it off or flip over to the Hawks vs. Coyotes where you're guaranteed a sudden death OT.




So with all that being said AND the fact that this is the first time the NHL playoffs are being broadcast in their entirety, every game can be seen across the new NBCSportsNetwork, CNBC (if you watch closely Cramer runs through center ice screaming about stocks just before the opening puck drop) and NBC, why does nobody care? Now I don't want to say nobody cares... but the NHL was celebrating increased viewership and the story to me was nothing to get excited about.

USA Today wrote that ratings had increased 77% for a game between the Flyers and Penguins vs. a match up between the Rangers and Capitals last year (not really sure how those 2 relate but spin your numbers however you need to Gary Bettman!) but what I saw were continued poor showings vs. other sports. The best overnight rating the NHL can claim is the 2.3% from the game specified above. But that same night an NBA regular season game between the Lakers and Mavs drew 3.6% as did NASCAR's Saturday night race. And 78,000 people that day got in their vehicles and watched a practice game in Tuscaloosa, Alabama. My research shows none of them were watching Flyers vs. Pens that night. You can come up with your own assumptions why.

You can't tell me the Mavericks vs. Lakers (without Kobe, Lamar or Khloe involved) or a NASCAR race had more excitement than the NHL that night, but nobody cares. And I can tell you why. The NHL is the only pro sport in the last 25 years to lose an entire season to labor negotiations. Really? The NHLPA couldn't figure out a way to play hockey? Of all the pro sports aren't those guys paid the least? Not only was a season lost and a large percentage of an already small fan base was turned off by the sports and found other entertaining items to fill their weekend, but when the NHL came back they could not get a deal with ESPN. Instead Versus (now the NBCSportsNetwork) became our home for NHL coverage. And Versus in 2005 was similar to the... hmm whats a good reference today... how about NHL Network. You know it's there somewhere but you weren't really sure what channel it was on or if you had it in your cable package. And if you were a hockey fan (like I was!) you got all 18 games of the season featuring 17 contests between the Rangers/Flyers/Penguins or Red Wings.

The NHL was already fighting for your eyeballs before and did the one thing that would kill any major pro sport. Are they recovering? Yes. Will the NHL continue to thrive? Yes. Will American sports fans choose the NHL Playoffs over a Spring College Football game? Probably not.

Content for this article was found on nhl.com, usatoday.com and espn.com.