The NHL doesn’t sell winning to its fans. Only one franchise gets to deliver on that advertising each season. The league sells hope – the hope that winning all the games that matter is something that will happen this season, or in the case of sad-sack teams, that it will take place in the near-future. When you see fans start to abandon teams – as they did in recent years in Florida and Arizona after years of either mismanagement or relocation rumors – it’s because the hope pipeline has run dry. That’s what the points system is working to do: keep each of the 30 spouts from the main pipeline open for as many days as possible.

You can criticize the NHL for many things – and goodness knows, I do – but it’s difficult to envision the NHL’s system working much better than it does at the moment. Hockey still matters in virtually all of the league’s cities, and nearly every game on the calendar still means something. Not every league can boast of such good fortune.

-Adam Proteau of The Hockey News where you can read more on this topic.