Bettman happy with playoff format change
/Commissioner Gary Bettman continued his tour of NHL playoff series and, among other things, indicated the new playoff format seems to be working out so far.
“The early returns have been terrific," Bettman said, via NJ.com. "You remember the playoff structure if a function of realignment. And realignment was done to get teams in a better geography in terms of where they were playing on the road.
"For instance, Dallas, which has been in the Pacific, it was a major burden for their fans to watch most of their road games because of the time difference. Moving Minnesota to the Central, as well. Moving Detroit and Columbus East. That was important.
"The second element that was important in realignment was having every team play in every building at least once.
"And third we wanted to emphasize geographical rivalries both in the regular-season schedule and the playoffs. When you look at the matchups - whether it’s the Rangers-Flyers or Bruins-Detroit – this is pretty good stuff.
"The early returns in terms of attendance, all the buildings are sold out, the national TV ratings and local TV ratings are up. We set out to do something that we thought our fans would like and the early returns are it’s working the way we had hoped.”
Source: Randy Miller, NJ.com
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