Playoff Format

[ricardodw]

Originally Posted by Ace

Seems important for the flames to win the conference this year, for a good first round opponent. Important games ahead...

current 3rd place teams:

St.L 79 pts in 69 games
Vegas 81 pts in 70 games
Toronto 89 pt in 69 games
Pittsburgh 85 pts in 70 games


The 1-2 teams in each division will be going hard for #1 and a WC match up to avoid the #3 teams.

[Traditional_Ale]

Originally Posted by CaptainYooh

My friend, who also is a huge Leafs fan, made a $20 bet with me that Toronto wins SC this season against my bet that they will not. Just like that. There's something so inexplicably arrogant about Leafs' fans... I wanna see the game with him where they lose the series and collect on that bet. It's not even the money...

(L)osers
(E)ven
(A)fter
(F)ifty
(S)easons

[Textcritic]

Originally Posted by ricardodw

weakest division is Pacific

total win - total losses by division:

Metropolitan - 73
Atlantic - 67
Central - 51
Pacific - 42

teams with more losses than wins by division (lottery teams)

Pacific -3
Atlantic - 2
Metropolitan -1
Central -0

And yet, the Pacific Division absolutely crushes the Central head-to-head: 75-56-10.

"Strongest" and "weakest" divisions can be measured in a variety of ways.

[GirlySports]

The NHL is really unlucky, they went back to divisional playoffs to get rivalry matchups but never get one.

Calgary-Edmonton have always been in the same division and haven't met since 1991
Same with Rangers-Islanders who haven't met since 94

Leafs-Habs, Kings-Ducks, Panthers-Lightning have never met.

[GioforPM]

Originally Posted by GirlySports

The NHL is really unlucky, they went back to divisional playoffs to get rivalry matchups but never get one.

Calgary-Edmonton have always been in the same division and haven't met since 1991
Same with Rangers-Islanders who haven't met since 94

Leafs-Habs, Kings-Ducks, Panthers-Lightning have never met.

They've had a fair number of traditional rivalry matchups out east. Pens-Caps seem to meet every year.

[Aarongavey]

Currently in the west the playoffs would be (based on points not winning percentage)
San Jose v. Arizona
Calgary v. Vegas
Winnipeg v. Stars
Nashville v. Blues

Old system
Only difference is Calgary would play the blues and Nashville would play Vegas. By the end of the year the scenario could be the exact same. Seems like a complaint based in Toronto because they do not want to get thumped by the bruins in the first round.

[Aarongavey]

Originally Posted by Duffalufagus

This. No way the Jets should get home ice advantage over whichever team finishes second in the Pacific. Ridiculous.

The jets would have home ice over the 2nd place team in the pacific in either system.

[Rubicant]

I like down goes brown’s playoff format from earlier this year (in the athletic).

Conference 1-8 seeded by points, no regard to division winners.

Round 1: 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7 etc

Round 2: Re-seed the remaining teams by points in each conference and 1 vs 4, 2 vs 3

Round 3: The remaining teams go 1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3 regardless of conference.

I love this idea as it means that potentially two teams from the same conference could meet in the finals. Leafs vs habs for the cup? Flames vs Oilers (haha)? Rangers vs Islanders?

This system also would avoid two top teams playing each other in round 2 like last year, or potentially the first round this year (bruins vs leafs). Top that all off with potential huge rivalries for the cup? Yes please.

[powderjunkie]

I like current set up - it gives more interesting series in the first round. You need to beat at least 3 good teams to win a cup, sometimes the cards fall that you need to beat 4.

Once at 32 teams, I'd go fully divisional, with 4v5 play-in games on the Monday and Tuesday that are currently dead days after the reg season ends. Kicks the playoffs off with four national, do-or-die games, and keeps more teams in the playoff hunt for longer. It also gives the division winners an extra bonus as they get to play a team with little rest.

[the2bears]

Originally Posted by CGY12

What really is terrible, from what I understand, is should the Flames/Sharks (whoever finishes 2nd) and Jets make it to the Western Conference Final, the Jets would have home ice despite potentially finishing 10 points behind. Correct me if I'm wrong?

Per NHL.com:

In the Conference Final and Stanley Cup Final, home-ice advantage goes to the team that had the better regular-season record, regardless of the teams' final standing in their respective divisions.

So no, Winnipeg would not have home-ice advantage.

[mrkajz44]

Current system works well. Any system would cause some sort of "unfairness" somehow, it's not like there is a magical solution.

I like the current system as it rewards winning the division. Does it suck for the Leafs and Bruins this year where their division has the best team in the league? Yes, but over time different divisions will have the same issue.

[GGG]

The only tweak I would make is not to resend the wild card teams. So if 4 teams from each division make the playoffs all series are divisional regardless of who has more points between the 4th place teams.

The only time the wildcard would affect it is if the 5th place team in one is better than the 4th place team in the other. This would ensure 6 divisional series in the first round.

The other thing I would consider is making the wildcard Inter Conferamce. So the 9th place team in one conference could be the wildcard in the other.

I find 1-8 a dumb idea as every argument supporting 1-8 supports 1-16.

[Sylvanfan]

Yeah, if they still kept Divisions and gave the Division winners the 1-2 seeds, it's not that different than what it used to be. Although with only 2 Divisions it would make it so that the top two teams didn't meet up in round two if they were from the Same Division.

Part of the idea was to build rivalries, but they did also want to limit travel a bit in the first two rounds for Western teams. Less Central/Pacific time zone matchups in round one. But that can go by the way side easily enough if you were to end up with a San Jose and Dallas first round match up. Likewise the Flames can get to Minny or Denver as quickly as they can to Vegas, and quicker than they can get to California.

I'd be curious to know if there was more or less travel for teams if they tried to split the West into a North and South, say Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Colorado, Minnesota, Chicago in the North and San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Arizona, Las Vegas, St.Louis, Dallas, Nashville in the South. I think the current format likely works better, but it would be an interesting comparison.

[calumniate]

Current format is also good for keeping the regular season interesting. Lots of shuffle between the wild card spots etc

[calgaryred]

I grew up with the Smythe battles so I'm a huge fan of the current playoff system

Sent from my SM-G930W8 using Tapatalk

[btimbit]

Hopefully when Seattle arrives they just go 1-4 in each division for playoff spots

[Hoop27]

It's a month old but I wrote a blog on this if you want to take a look. https://hoop278.wixsite.com/shanehoo...32-team-league


Not getting back into blogging but this is part of my stroke rehab therapy

[SebC]

Boring and repetitive

[dissentowner]

Originally Posted by Hoop27

It's a month old but I wrote a blog on this if you want to take a look. https://hoop278.wixsite.com/shanehoo...32-team-league


Not getting back into blogging but this is part of my stroke rehab therapy

Jesus, sorry to hear you had a stroke.

[Dion]

In many ways the first round provides some of the best hockey when you see teams like Toronto and Boston go at it. The problem is the potential to see really good teams gone the first round. When you two 100 point teams going at in the first rond, the present format makes no sense.