Quote:
Originally Posted by Oling_Roachinen
I don't think it was an oversight.
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Oversight might be the wrong word, but it goes against the whole reason for returning to Divisional playoffs.
When they decided to reconfigure the playoffs to return to Divisional alignments, they did it for two main reasons:
1. They wanted a return to the heated Divisional rivalries that get even more intense when the teams meet in the playoffs.
There hasn't been a Battle of Alberta playoff series since 1991. The Leafs and Habs haven't met since 1979. Tampa and Florida have never met in the playoffs. LA and Anaheim have never met in the playoffs. Even Vancouver and Edmonton have only ever met once in the playoffs (and that was with Divisional playoffs for over a decade).
Returning to Divisional playoffs is supposed to lead us to see more of these rivalry match-ups in the playoffs.
2. They wanted to get rid of long distance first and second round series that span two or three time zones.
Anaheim has played Detroit six times in the playoffs (they've only made the playoffs nine times). They have met in the first round three times. In those match-ups, the games in Detroit would start at 4 or 4:30 in Anaheim; and the games in Anaheim would start at 10 or 10:30 in Detroit. Those sorts of the schedules aren't great for fans of either team.
Detroit and Columbus moving to the East has ensured there won't be any three-hour differences anymore, but there could still be two-hour differences.
If the playoffs started today, we'd have: St Louis-Phoenix (2 hour difference); Chicago-Colorado (1 hour difference); San Jose-Minnesota (2 hour difference); and Anaheim-LA (same time zone). If preserving the Divisional alignments was the first priority, Chicago-Colorado would be the only match-up with a time difference, and it is only one hour.
If the goal was to have the best teams play the lowest teams, they wouldn't have changed the playoff format in the first place.
It looks like it won't happen, but earlier in the season, when the Metro Division teams were doing so poorly, it looked like a real possibility that the Penguins second-round opponent was going to have a worse record than their first-round opponent. Even now, the third-place team in the Atlantic has more points than the second-place team in the Metro.
The rule, as it's written now, is the worst of all possible solutions. They should have either stuck with the 1-8 Conference alignment, or gone to a straight Divisional alignment, with crossovers only as necessary.