10. I do think regular season success matters in terms of maintaining a steady level throughout the season and getting yourself obviously to the playoffs and putting yourself in a good spot. However, I don't think a team should exhaust themselves to try to get to the top position. I do think it's important if a team is at the very top to make moves to further ensconch themselves at the top; however, I think the inherent randomness of hockey playoffs makes it difficult to necessarily say whether any specific moves or set of moves will guarantee a team a championship or a deep run. Moreover, I think the teams just have to deal with the luck of the draw when it comes to matchups; maybe one team gets a team they play horribly against for whatever reason while another team gets an opponent they play very well against again for whatever reason. Thus, I think a team should get to the playoffs as many times as they can and put themselves in a high spot but don't try to give up too much to add pieces because there's no guarantee any one trade will make the difference. As they say the sim will be the sim sometimes. (212 words - 4 TPE)

11. I'm definitely going to be feeling this soon as the Hamilton Steelhawks get closer and closer to contention; heck we saw that this season with the Steelhawks somehow keeping it close to making the playoffs despite the fact that we're not in that position just yet to contend. I think that ultimately if you're going to win a cup, you'll have to face the top teams anyways so it really doesn't matter who you face when. However, psychologically it definitely hurts to have a more difficult matchup early on; plus it feels better if you lose to say that you made, say, the conference finals over losing in the 2nd round. That being said, I think this just has to do with an inherent imbalance in the divisions but I don't think it's anything inherently broken with the playoff system; as in at some point the division that had the weaker 2nd and 3rd place teams will get deeper and make it more balanced in terms of which side gets the better end of the deal, if any team gets that at all. I don't think we need to change the playoff structure purely because of that; however, I personally would like to go to 1-8 for each conference if possible regardless just because it's neater that way. I know FHM is weird in its playoff structure so I'm not sure if that's possible; however, I think it would be good to freshen up the matchups because at some point I'd like to refresh the matchups. You can only go so long after facing another team before you'll like yep let's face someone else please even if that team you're favorable against. (282 words - 4 TPE)

8 TPE total