[Mathgod]

I'm about to voice my displeasure about the playoff format, so if you don't like these kinds of threads perhaps just click to go back to the forum and choose a different thread to read.

It's a darn shame that at least one team with 108 or more points is guaranteed to be eliminated in the first round.

It's a darn shame that at least two teams with 108 or more points (two of the top four teams in the NHL) are guaranteed to be eliminated in the first two rounds.

And it's a huge shame that a team with 94 points, which ended the season on a 20-6-4 tear, won't be partaking in these playoffs. The Lightning are just now starting to get healthy and hitting their stride, but due to an (IMO) very unfair standings and playoff format, these playoffs will not include one of the league's best teams. By the second round there will be at least two of the best teams not present, and by the third round there will be at least three of the league's best teams not present.

A case could be made that Jets fans are also getting the raw end of the deal considering their team just won 7 in a row to finish off the rs... all for naught.

This is a big disappointment. And it's all happening because the NHL has an (IMO) archaic and outdated regular season system which says that games played in Oct/Nov/Dec mean just as much games played in March and April. Thing is, three months is a lot of time; a team can progress or regress quite in that time with a static roster, nevermind the fact that injuries, trades, and other roster changes can shake things up even more. To me, games played early in the season don't have a whole lot of relevance to how a team would perform in April/May/June, and the standing/playoff format should be adjusted to account for that.