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Originally Posted by Carte Blanche
The system has its imperfections [...]
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You should've stopped right there.
The NHL is full of imperfections, and it doesnt take a rocket scientist to realise some of those. 8 games against teams in the same division are meant to intensify the supposed divisioinal rivalry, but what rivalry would exist when, for example, Toronto plays Detroit once a year, and wont face the western Canadian teams for two straight years! And talking about intensifying rivalries... when two teams face each other five times in a single month, they just get sick of each other. The notion of a heated battle disappears. And forget mentioning about other parities in the scheduling (time zone conflicts for some western teams, unfair amount of travelling, etc).
But the system in place that bothers me the most is the automated top-three seedings for the division winners in each conference. The issue of a tough division aside, there can be a team thats seeded 3rd, but with less points than a 5th or 6th ranked team in the Conference. So you can play hard for 82 regular season games, get good enough points to be a top-seeded team, but end up ranked lower in the standings and lose the potential home-ice advantage 'cuz of the automated seedings of the division winners.