The NHL's playoff seeding system is bad and I don't like it
Plus, Taylor Pendrith wins and the Maple Leafs definitely do not
The second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is underway, and under a system that made any sense, the top-seed New York Rangers would be hosting the lowest of the remaining seeds, the Boston Bruins. That would have a been a cracker of a matchup. Original Six teams! Serious regional animosity between the big markets! In that scenario, the other Eastern Conference matchup would have pit the Florida Panthers against the Carolina Hurricanes. OK, so not exactly a pairing rich with history, but there is a bit of a regional rivalry there. The Sun Belt Derby!
This is, of course, not what happened, because the NHL has a dumb playoff system that prioritizes division matchups. It stinks for a bunch of reasons, explained in detail in my latest piece at theScore, which is an app you should all have on your phones and use regularly.
Nice touch for a big man
Several years ago at a Golf Canada media event, I played a few holes with Taylor Pendrith. He was just out of college, or just about to finish it, and he joined my group, striding up as this big, pleasant lad who looked like he could probably hit the ball an absolute mile.
We were at, I think, Bond Head, northwest of Toronto, and the first hole we played together was a short-ish par-4. Pendrith lasered the yardage to the pin. I don’t remember the precise number, but it was around 300 yards. He took out his three-wood. Driver was too much club, he said. We all laughed at this absurd notion. “Chicken stick?,” his coach teased about the club selection. Pendrith hesitated for a bit, having had his bravery jokingly questioned. Then he stepped up, and hit a moonshot three-wood that soared, curved slightly and plopped onto the centre of the green.
He missed the eagle putt, tapped in for birdie, and I was pretty sure I had just played a hole with a future PGA Tour winner.
It took a while, after a number of years derailed by injuries, but Pendrith finally had his moment on Sunday. The 32-year-old from Richmond Hill birdied the 72nd hole to win the Byron Nelson, outside Dallas. It makes him the sixth — the SIXTH — active Canadian with a PGA Tour victory. The full list: Corey Conners, Mackenzie Hughes, Adam Hadwin, Adam Svensson, Nick Taylor and now Pendrith.
It is still kind of surreal to someone who grew up watching golf and occasionally saw someone like Dave Barr or Richard Zokol on a leaderboard, but Canadians are doing this at the PGA level all the time now. There are a bunch of reasons for this, and Golf Canada can deservedly take credit for some of them, but the Mike Weir effect is real. Just ask the players who inspired them to take up the game. The cool thing is the current batch of pros is now doing the same thing to the next generation.
Sad, but true
Pendrith also offered one of the more devastating commentaries on the Toronto Maple Leafs after his win. Asked what he had done on Saturday night to prepare for his Sunday attempt at victory, Pendrith said: “It was a pretty normal routine last night. Watched the Leafs lose, unfortunately.”
Ouch. No word on whether he thinks the Leafs should run it back, though. Thankfully we only have THREE MORE DAYS of speculation on this very subject before Maple Leafs executives meet with the media to explain their plans for the future.
Here are my predictions:
Sheldon Keefe, thank you for your service, but please give us your phone, laptop and key card.
That’s it.
I’m not even that confident about item 1 on the list, but figure that must be the reason for the four-day gap between when Keefe spoke to the media on Monday and his bosses do the same on Friday. Although it would be kind of hilarious if they did just announce at the end of the week that it’s status quo. Think of the takes! But maybe a lot of bad vibes and cussing at many Mother’s Day brunches, which would be unfortunate.