05-19-2023, 06:59 AMRomanesEuntDomus Wrote: Thank you for the numbers, they really help clear things up a lot. I'm not sure how your conclusion from them can be that it is only about the 11-16 seeds though, when these tables show so clearly, in my opinion, that the SHL is a lot more top-heavy than the NHL.

In the NHL you have that whole #7-#16 tier which has managed to do a lot, like 46% of cup wins and an additional 8 finals appearances over 15 seasons. Going by these numbers, roughly 50% of the teams that show up in the finals are from the lower-60% of playoff seeds.

Since the SHL is a bit smaller, you could probably translate that to around the #6 to #13 tier or so. Who combine for just 7% of cup wins and a measly 3 additional finals appearances. Only 13% of the teams that show up in the finals are from that lower group of seeds. That's soooo much less than both in real life and what we had before the engine change.
Caveat: The numbers do change a lot depending on whether you include #5 as well or not, since the cut-off between competitive and not very competitive seemed to have been between #5 and #6 in recent years, with the #5 seed having top-caliber numbers and the #6 seed having midfield numbers.

In contrast, if you look at the top, 33% of cup wins in the NHL come from the top-3 teams, while in the SHL it's 80%. 26% of all finals appearances in the NHL are top-3 teams, whereas in the SHL it's 56%.

You really can't argue that this lack of parity doesn't exist. You can argue that it is not a problem for one reason or another, or that enough steps have been taken recently for this problem to work itself out over the next couple of seasons, that's fair, but it is there and shows itself in all metrics. And yes, the NHL shouldn't be the be all and end all for our comparisons, that's a fair point and not realistic. But if the difference is so stark and such a departure from how the league used to be for much of its existence, it is worth discussing. Because it means that a large portion of our player base is fighting over scraps, even if they are super-engaged, max earning and so on.

I think a huge part of it that I don't think we can fix is: NHL teams have a financial incentive to do everything they can to avoid rebuilding. You do not sell as many tickets when you're obviously rebuilding, unless you're Toronto, Montreal or a few select others. We just don't have that, we only have players to convince to stick with the team through a rebuild, and not the fans who actually make an NHL team viable. That creates a cycle of teams that could maybe compete but probably not deciding to go through the rebuild, thus trading more immediate talent to the only teams that will buy it. Those teams get better, league gets more top-heavy, more teams decide to go through the rebuild to hopefully get to that top level of talent to win a Cup, rinse and repeat.