It is time for that annual debate as the playoffs roll on and some top seeds fail to live up to expectations.
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37 Comments
The 2011-12 Kings were sub .500 and I thought that cup run was incredible and I think Florida is doing the same thing right now, or at least it feels the same to me.
That's a sick Bruins hat. Where did you get it at?
So my Crimson Tide supporting Floridian friend, new to pro hockey, has suggested that the NHL change the playoff format to allow the top seeded teams to choose whom they want to play from round to round. Example: 123 choose their opponents in the 1st Rd, in the 2nd round whomever is highest remaining chooses again. Would this even change anything?
I think the mark is missed a little bit. A lot of these issues are easily solvable.
1. The point system needs to change to a 3 point game. 3 points for a regulation win, 2 points for a overtime/shootout win, and 1 point for a overtime/shootout loss. This will make each win in the regular season much more important for every seed.
2. Change the playoffs to Single Knockout. Hockey isn't baseball. There is no player/goalie rotation. This will make home ice advantage that much more important which should make the Regular Season much more important. The only reason to have a Best of 7 system is for money. The playoffs are essentially another season within a year and is drawn out. I personally don't find playoff hockey exciting until one team has 3 games won. This should also make players cooperate more in the playoffs because if they get suspended, they could be done for the whole playoffs and part of the next season.
3. Revisit the amount of games played in a year. Hockey does come close with points at the end of the season no matter where a team sits. Adding games to the regular season could make it that much more exciting if more games were added to the schedule. The teams in a division used to play 8 times against each other which created more heated rivalries. If the season were to increase the season where the teams play each other 8 times would add up to 110 games in a season; 7 times would be 103 (make it 104 to keep it an even number); and 6 times would be 96 games. Depending on where the teams are sitting, the rivalry may be heated enough that the lower seeded teams may give that extra effort to help eliminate their rival from a playoff spot or their divisional seed.
Now for an off-topic point. Overtime drives me nuts in the Regular Season. I get it. It's to end the game sooner, but 3 on 3 needs to stop. It isn't hockey. If the NHL is so concerned about teams playing to get to the shootout, then get rid of the shootout and continue playing until a team scores while playing 5 on 5. Then there are no rule changes between the Regular Season and the Playoffs. This is the only point I give credit for the playoffs. It's 5 on 5 throughout the game and if the game makes it to overtime, the teams keep playing until someone scores. That's more exciting in my opinion.
Hockey is the sport that is most vulnerable to the big upset. All it takes is a goalie on a hot streak and a .500 team can take down anyone. Baseball sometimes falls into this too with hot starting pitchers. But it just doesn't happen as much in the NBA (this year excluded).
I think wins in the regular season should get 3 points. They give out 3 points in OT games. So if you’re gonna divy up 3 points in OT, regulation winners should get 3. Then bring back 1 vs 8 in the playoffs
They should do something where top seeds get a buy into 2nd round especially if more teams enter league
Do we want to just give the cup to the President's Trophy winner? It not, it is what it is. Better teams lose in tournaments.The Bruins are not a victim of anything other than their own poor play when it mattered most. They won 65 of 82 games in the regular season and couldn't win 4 out of 7 against the worst team in the East to make the playoffs. What are we upset about?
During the season, the Bruins eaked out a LOT of games. They weren't dominant in many of them. The officiating doesn't help the situation. It is biased towards the established teams and players. It's not a conspiracy theory. How else could Marchand get away with all the nonsense he does game after game? Repeat offenses should mean something. But the NHL wants to post him up on the screen more than their better players because he creates fan reaction and interesting. It's all marketing that filters itself the way down to the officiating.
Secondly, the Bruins are not the same team with a healthy Bergeron. He was out for the first 4 games, and it showed.
Byes
Do people really want to go back to the 70s dangerous best of 3 mini series, or the divisional structure where bad to mediocre sub.500 teams could still get playoff spots, and finish with ~ 60 points in the regular season and still make the playoffs as long as they weren't last place in their division?
It may have worked (with a lot of hiccups) for when there were 20-21 teams… but in today's NHL it wouldn't. It does make the regular season mean more.
And yes, please do not turn the NHL into the WWE where there are multiple world champions.
I love your thought process on this. It's a sport. You can't weight things anymore than they are. Win your division, you get a high seeding and home ice. Either defend it or don't. It's not up to the other team to lay down and die because you are the 1 or 2 seed and the others are lowly 7 or 8. Put the puck into the goal. That's the only metric that matters. All 4 of the remaining teams understand that. (HOW THE HELL DIDN"T EDMONTON MAKE THE GD FINALS? not picking those chumps again. Reg Season trophy champs. Yeah they killed my bracket and I had Fla going to the SC finals and losing to them.)
Top level sport in USA is more business than sport. There's too many matches, often players don't look energetic when team-mate scores
Not only should the underdogs be 'allowed' to win, but that's where the excitement comes from. As a lifelong Red Wings fan I'll always remember when 'the best NHL team of all time" (2002 wings) then returned in 2003 as defending champs, to be swept in 1st round by #8 seed Anaheim, and Paul Kariya / Giguere's cup run that ensued. The stunning losses are a part of the fan experience!
It should be 1 v 16 with the division winner being the top 4 seeds
Let's face it. If the points leaders in both conferences faced each other in the finals every year that would be boring.
The most exciting part of the playoffs is cheering for your team and/or watching upsets.
To make the regular season mean more, forget brackets and seed 1-8 and reseed each round. Division winners get top seeds no matter their records. No playoff expansion.
Randoms: I think the league has it about right, playoffs-wise. Regular season, they shorted fans of teams in intense rivalries (e.g. Rangers/Islanders) at least one game. Why?
I liked the 5-game first round for two reasons: 1. Probably avoided an injury or two (at least). 2. Game 3, First Round, 1983, first playoff game I took my sons to (they're now 50 and 48! How'd that happen?) Rangers 9, Flyers 3 for the sweep. I still enjoy memory of Bob MacCammon whining that Herb Brooks had been aiming at the playoffs during the regular season. True, that. Bullies finished 26 points ahead of Blueshirts. Flyers .663 wpc, Rangers a flat .500. Smurfs smacked the Bullies around, both at the Spectrum and MSG.
June 1994: When Sam Rosen shouted, "The Rangers have won the Stanley Cup! AND THIS ONE WILL LAST FOREVER!!" I said to my sons, "If I'd known he was going to say that, I'd have kneecapped the S.O.B. so he couldn't get near a microphone. But, of course, I'm not superstitious.
Another sparkling offering, Shannon.
1. Stanley Cup Champions
2. Stanley Cup Finals
3. Conference Finals
4. Conference Semi-Finals
5. Conference Quarterfinals
6. Regular Season with President Trophy
7. Regular Season Top 8/Conference to the play-offs.
8. Division Title.
And yes it is always bad when the Regular Season champions = President Trophy winners who in both Conferances was the best team gets eliminated in 1st round and
2nd round depending on opposition quality.
The playoffs are "The second season I'm to know". I think Robert Plant said it best.
Good analysis, hard to disagree.
If i had my way and could just go crazy though id love to expand the NHL to 40 teams (add Houston, Atlanta, QC, Hamilton, KC, SLC, Portland, and Hartford) but then split the league into two and have promotions/relegation.
Each league the top 8 teams make the playoffs in a 1v8 format.
Top 4 teams from the lower league get promoted (with the champion getting a 3 year exemption), and the bottom 8 teams from the top league play a tournament to fight to stay in the top league.
How about the winners choosing their opponent?
in the 1. round the Division Winners chose their opponent from their Division plus the wild card
2. Round Conference Champion chose their opponent out of the remaining teams of the conference
3. Round (CF) Presidents Trophy Winner chose their opponent of the other 3 final 4 teams.
After upsets the right to right to chose falls to the highest remaining team in the respective subdivision.
Pros:
– you give a deciding advantage to D/ C/ PT Winners and create a opportunity for the front office to make the wrong decision. (queue up the drama)
– More chance for the best teams to get to the final. You can't coast to the final 4 by dominating a shit division or the SC from a weaker conference.
– You still increase rivalries because traveling across time zones is more taxing on your team and there is an economic incentive to pick attractive matchups. While still providing a way to avoid your dreaded play-off nemesis.
– less coasting before the play-offs, there is a big difference between division win and conference win.
Cons:
– No plannable brackets.
– less tightening the timetable after short series
– less chance for the underdog
I prefer Division winners followed by
vs 3-8.
Otherwise the Division means little if they are 1-8.
Home team can’t be penalized in first period
Home team starts game with 2 penalty shots
Home team gets 5 minute power play on one time out per period
OR JUST SHOW UP WHEN IT COUNTS !!!!!!!!?
Play the final at a neutral site.
I have an idea that might help address this situation. There are several permutations but the simplest is this:
In the playoffs give the home team an automatic man advantage in overtime.
Maybe this advantage should be limited to Conference winners.
This could (maybe) kill 2 birds with one stone because it gives the home team an extra advantage in every game and the NHL has a problem with home ice advantage (it's minimal). As Shannon has pointed out this leads to a worse fan experience. Fans obviously want their team to win when they go to the rink and the experience is better when the do. Obviously you cannot guarantee anything and ploys to make it to easy to win at home would backfire.
But as of now the NHL has a problem with almost none-existent home ice advantage – especially in the playoffs.
I would favor giving this 5 on 4 edge in overtime to only conference winners. Currently 3 of 4 conference winners are either gone or hanging by a thread. The way it is now, (and has been for years actually), you really have to wonder if the winner of the Stanley Cup is really the best hockey team in the NHL.
This 5 on 4 edge in overtime would be only a slight advantage but it could be significant. In my scheme, the home team always gets that edge so the conference winner would have 4 potential overtime advantages, and the opponent 3. Lest this sound to minor, remember that the first two games are typically at home for the conference winner, so they get home ice + an overtime advantage to start. This might limit the "ambush" that teams optimized for short series often are able to do vs. deep teams that win consistently over 82 games. This advantage is not big but it's something.
Another benefit: the team down by a man in overtime would probably engage is more high risk behavior and that would be fun to watch.
It's possible that this would be counter-productive (de-motivate the favorite), but I really think something has to be done.
There should be some reward for having a good record, some reward for winning a conference championship and the way it feels now it feels like not only is there no reward, it feels like there is an outright disadvantage. It just feels wrong to reward the teams that did not do so well in the regular season.
I suspect that the reason for this is that the makeup/structure of a team that is best in a short series is just different than the makeup/structure of a team that is best over 82 games. So it feels like under the current system we don't generally have the best team win the Stanley Cup. What even defines the best team? It's obvious that the team with the best record(s) over a long stretch (82) is more often than not unable to beat a team constructed to be the best over 7.
It feels like a track competition where 32 runners compete in a mile race, and the top 16 milers then compete head to head in 100 meter dashes. Then the winner of the last 100 meter showdown is crowned "the best runner". That's essentially how the NHL works at this point.
I want to compliment Shannon here. The guy below says Shannon is the best in "non-cable/network tv hockey coverage?" um no. Shannon is the best *period*. His analysis beats anything out there.
When I saw the title, my first thought went to European soccer leagues, where there are no playoffs and the reg season champs win the trophy. While that system is better at determining the best team imo, it's nowhere near as entertaining as a playoff tournament. From what I've gathered, not having a playoffs to decide the champion is a non starter North America
The best move but it will never happen is the top seeds pick their opponent every round , all the way through the playoffs , you want rivalry , you want a big media day when the selection happens
This year, in the east anyway. It was 1-8. But back when it was actually seeded that way, how many times did Dallas and Edmonton meet up? I can recall 3 times off the top of my head. There may have been more. It doesn’t really matter what way they seed it.
There are lots of upsets in the playoffs every year, because the NHL completely changes the standard of officiating from regular season to playoffs. They are the only league in the world that does this. It would be like if the NFL stopped calling pass interference penalties in the playoffs, then all the teams with a good passing game get eliminated by teams with grinding defence and running games. The NHL spends all regular season protecting their stars and encouraging skill, only to throw it all out the window come playoff time. I love hockey, but the NHL really destroys their own integrity with their varying standards of officiating.
It should only be judged for teams that are on the rise. To compare to other seasons on how your team is developing. If you're a constant playoff team you might be able to use it to look at your opponents and see what their strengths and weaknesses are.
yes. consistency over 82 games should matter more than matchups over 4-7 games. they're completely different beasts, especially because of the changing standard in officiating.
like his videos people! 280k subs. 1.5k likes…. lets do better!
The only way to make the regular season mean more is to let only eight teams in the playoffs you would have to have great regular season to win the cup but because the playoffs mean money and a lot of it to owners this will never happen so while the regular season might mean little to the fans there is a lot of money on the line for owners.
Keep the way it is. N no it doesn't matter. Stop whining Boston
It does mean more and more for every team that gets added.
Funny story about 2019, I was in Vegas when the TB-CBJ series kicked off, with a buddy from Columbus. During game 1 Columbus was down by I believe multiple goals, we happened to be in the sportsbook section in one of the casinos and I, mostly mockingly, checked the odds on a CBJ sweep and suggested to my buddy he put a wager on it. I can’t remember what they were but it was one of those that you make as a fan just for the novelty of having the bet slip rather than expecting any real chance of winning. Ever since I’ve given him a hard time for not listening. 🤣