How to fix the Playoff Format & Tanking Issue

[theguardianII]

This doesn't really work, be the teams that are truly tanking, are those that have a shot at being the worst. The other teams are closer to a playoff spot and are still trying for it. Sure you might have a couple teams in the grey area between, but not enough for this option to be the solution for tanking. I personally don't care about tanking. But if I wanted to solve it I'd use the elimination point accumulation method.

Once your team is mathematically eliminated from playoffs you starts to accumulate points in a separate standings for wins. The standings in this table determines draft order. This gives the worst teams an advantage because they get a head start. It also incentives winning instead of losing when you can no longer make playoffs. It's not perfect, but if they wanted to have teams keep competing while giving some advantage to bad teams, this would be it.

Tanking is easily fixed.
I already addressed the first three picks
So here is the next, a lottery based on reverse results for teams not making the playoffs.
Have the first three for perennial bottom feeders
Then 4 to 7 in order of regular standings, picks 4, 5, 6 & 7
and
8 to 16 in reverse order of non playoff teams.
The last could be changed to 5 to 16 in reverse order but the worst team not making it might be really bad that year

 

[BigBadBruins7708]

The league has standings going back eons, not many end up being bottom feeders 3 or 4 years in a row.
Whether McDavid is the prime #1 that year doesn't matter, it is the pick. If it isn't great then that team will have a chance at the 2nd overall and 3rd overall over the next two years IF they are still that bad.

The idea of rotating is to prevent a poorly run team from locking up top picks, being rewarded for incompetence.

If a team thought there was another McDavid coming when the kid is 13 years old, they would have to tank from that time on to insure they had an 1 in 3 chance for that player.

What my system does is prevent a one or two year tanking, even for just a better lottery odds.
It prevents 40 point dives for players like Crosby, Stamkos, Hedman, Toews, Kane, Malkin, Ovechkin and McDavid and Mathews. None of those teams were bottom feeders for 3 or 4 years, most were one year tank jobs, two at most. But then they got better.
And having only 3 teams going for the first pick using 3 balls eliminates that one year when teams were issued hundreds of combinations and any possible manipulation.
The idea of the draft is to help teams get better, lower picks usually result in better results on the ice.
The draft was never designed for a one year tank, but under Bettman and the cap contracts structures the early picks become much more valuable, also the dilution of talent is allowing these kids to step in and be very effective.

Pittsburgh and Chicago were bottom feeders for years, they werent "1 year dives"

Over a 5 year span the Penguins picked 5-1-2-1-2 getting Whitney, Fleury, Malkin, Crosby, Staal

Over a 4 year span, Chicago picked 3-7-3-1 getting Barker, Skille, Toews, Kane

 

[Brodeur]

The NFL doesn't have a lottery--their draft order is purely based on inverse standings. They don't seem to have any problems with tanking. The players aren't going to tank--they're playing for their next contract and/or a roster spot next season, so they're not going to just mail it in. I guarantee NHL players would not be on board with a tank either, as they'd be playing for their next contract/roster spot. Just ditch the lottery and let the terrible teams have their top picks. If they are that bad, it's going to take some time for them to rebuild anyway.

One caveat with the NFL is that there's a mix of graduating seniors and underclassmen who declare. NHL is a little bit more straightforward with the draft class being by age.

Peyton Manning decided to go back for his senior year when he could (and according to Bill Parcells would) have been the #1 pick to the Jets in 1997. Similarly Andrew Luck could have been a top pick in 2011 but wanted another year of college. Recently there had been rumblings that this year's presumed #1 pick Caleb Williams was considering returning to USC.

Mix in the sheer number of players playing specialized roles and the NFL Draft is just a different beast than say the NHL/NBA.

 

[Bones45]

The NHL is facing many challenges right now which were reportedly discussed in some of the last few GM meetings, notably:

• Not enough teams in the playoffs. The number of teams in the league have went up but not the number of playoffs team.
• Tanking. How to solve this?

Thanks for reading.

You lost me with the awful grammar in the first bullet.

And the second bullet point is nonsense. Teams dont "tank", as in lose on purpose to achieve a higher draft pic. Thats a talking point of fans.

 

[Goptor]

The NHL is facing many challenges right now which were reportedly discussed in some of the last few GM meetings, notably:

• Not enough teams in the playoffs. The number of teams in the league have went up but not the number of playoffs team.
• Tanking. How to solve this?
• Generating more revenue and viewership in the league, specially for some of the bottom teams in the league at the tail end of the season (low attendance and follower-ship).
• (This point is not necessarily discussed by GMs but) there is definitely some frustration on the fan side with the current format of playoffs by division which penalizes teams in stronger divisions and takes away some of the point of finishing first in the conference for the sake of “rivalry”.

I’ve been following this league for decades and as a business major, have studied the NHL business model quite a bit as part of one of my researches (for what it’s worth, I documented a paper on the potential expansion of the NHL to Vegas and Seattle back in 2009).
This doesn’t mean I know the league’s business model, ownership dynamic and vision inside and out, but I’d like to think that I have some basic understanding of their business model and the CBA.
My proposed solution:

Playoffs:
1-6 of each conference automatically make it in the round of 16.
7 plays 10, 8 plays 9 in a best of 3 or 5 (further market study required) in a Wild-card play-in tournament to get one of the final 2 wildcard spots.
The team ranked first in each conference get to PICK their matchup among the 2 teams that won their wildcard matchup from their conference.
The other wildcard team that isn’t picked plays the 2nd of the conference (then 3vs6, 4vs5).

Objectives attainted:

• More teams involved in the playoffs.
• More revenue generated.
• Better significance to finishing first of the conference.
• More “buzz” around the wildcard teams and the matchup picked by the team finishing first. (Could you imagine what an upset would do in terms of buzz to the league if a team picked their matchup and lost? You wanted to create rivalry?)
• More fair advantages to teams finishing top 4 in the conference.

Draft Tournament:
Bottom 8 teams in the league (based on overall NHL standing), get randomly drawn into matchups together (no conference or standing criteria).
This is a single knockoff 3 round tournament.
The 2 finalists of this mini-tournament will get the first 2 overall picks (winner gets first overall).
Everyone else that participated are ordered in the draft based on their final regular season standing regardless of how far they made it in the tournament. For example, this means that the team that finished last in the standings will get 3rd overall at worst if they don’t make it to the final (let’s say they got eliminated in the first round).

Note: For the first round matchups, the team lower in the standings should get home-ice for that single KO game.
For the semi final and final (since it’s a 3 round KO tournament), the team highest in the standings get the home ice.

Objectives attainted:

• You make teams work for those sought after first 2 overall picks.
• Cut down on tanking significantly as 8 teams have an equal opportunity for those 2 picks.
• The teams that finish at the bottom of the league are still not too penalized as they can only drop 2 spots (doesn’t halt their rebuild).
• Gives an opportunity for those lower-middle ranked teams to get competitive faster.
• More revenue and buzz generated.

Overall:
When combining these 2 elements, the NHL would arguably create a more competitive environment, while giving more significance to the regular season performance.
Additionally, depending on whether they would go with a best of 3 or 5 format for the wildcard games, the league would generate more revenue with up to 17 additional games (or 13 if it’s a best of 3, which is personally my preference), without mentioning the buzz that it would create.
With this format, all but 4 teams would see some sort of action past the 82 game mark (whether it’s through the playoffs, wildcard play-ins or the Draft Tournament).
The wild card play-in and the draft tournament would be played at the same time.
If the league is indeed planning on expanding in the medium-term, this format becomes that much more interesting.
(On a side note, the league should consider making the preseason a little shorter and start the regular season by the end of September rather than in mid October). At the end of it all, the Stanley Cup final would take place a little earlier. (FYI most teams lose money on preseason games anyway).

Sorry for the long text but felt I had to be somewhat thorough about the explanations.
Curious to hear what people think of this proposal (constructive comments and feedback only please).

Thanks for reading.

Expanded playoffs:
The league will expand the playoffs. An extra week or 2 of playoffs games to sell to broadcasters will bring in a lot of revenue. Your system needs some tweaks. Giving teams a week or 2 off is a significant disadvantage. Its well known enough that the NHL had to schedule "exhibition" playoffs games between the bye teams during the covid extended playoffs.

Tanking:
You are overplaying the tanking issue. MLB and NBA have a worse problem with tanking than the NHL does. NFL is far ahead of NHL in dealing with tanking though. They do it with short non-guaranteed contracts, short team control player rights, and a crippling salary cap. If you really want to eliminate tanking, then you need more team performance volatility year by year.
Your draft tournament is a pipe dream. Having players play in a bunch of extra games without getting paid and without any other incentive will never pass with the NHLPA. It also doesn't work with a points system that is designed to keep the standings really close. You'll usually see a small point difference between, say, the 5th worst team and the 10th worst team. Owners and fans wont be happy when losing a points tie break is the deciding factor of getting a few games of extra gate revenue AND the best chance at #1 OA draft.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

The league has standings going back eons, not many end up being bottom feeders 3 or 4 years in a row.

League standings from 1947 are completely relevant to league standings in 2024. As in, "not applicable at all." But yes, the Rangers and Bruins were absolutely terrible throughout the 50s and 60s; it wasn't until the late 60s that they both crawled out of the league's basement. Detroit, outside of a couple years, was terrible from 1971 to 1986 and was especially terrible from 1979-1986 ... which included 3 years of #4 overall pick Steve Yzerman.

So yeah, there are instances where teams are bottom feeders 3 or 4 years in a row. Even including O6 teams, in the days where you practically had to try to not make the playoffs.

Whether McDavid is the prime #1 that year doesn't matter, it is the pick. If it isn't great then that team will have a chance at the 2nd overall and 3rd overall over the next two years IF they are still that bad.

Because the 2nd overall and 3rd overall picks are just like having the 1st overall pick, just ... not as good, and even less good.

The idea of rotating is to prevent a poorly run team from locking up top picks, being rewarded for incompetence.

Wait, are we fixing tanking or are we fixing incompetence? If we're "fixing" the "problem" of tanking, your argument fails; if we're "fixing" being "rewarded for incompetence" then how does keeping teams from picking high fix that problem? You're simply punishing them even more for being incompetent, which implicitly rewards being bad but doing so competently.

Either way, I don't think you're making the point you think you are.

If a team thought there was another McDavid coming when the kid is 13 years old, they would have to tank from that time on to insure they had an 1 in 3 chance for that player.

Or, they could linger in that bottom area because they're bad, wait until McDavid comes into his draft year, go for a complete bottom out, and go for that 1-in-3 shot. Again, you're not fixing anything; you're simply shifting the incentive to tank.

What my system does is prevent a one or two year tanking, even for just a better lottery odds.

This presumes tanking is a problem, which you and everyone else has failed to demonstrate.

It prevents 40 point dives for players like Crosby, Stamkos, Hedman, Toews, Kane, Malkin, Ovechkin and McDavid and Mathews. None of those teams were bottom feeders for 3 or 4 years, most were one year tank jobs, two at most. But then they got better.

Someone answered this elsewhere. But no one who got one of those guys was spending years in a targeted effort to tank and score their goal player.

And having only 3 teams going for the first pick using 3 balls eliminates that one year when teams were issued hundreds of combinations and any possible manipulation.

Again, it's a non-solution to a non-problem that introduces new problems that you're ignoring.

The idea of the draft is to help teams get better, lower picks usually result in better results on the ice.
The draft was never designed for a one year tank

Well ... yeah, it implicitly was - it just may not have always been utilized that way

but under Bettman and the cap contracts structures the early picks become much more valuable, also the dilution of talent is allowing these kids to step in and be very effective.

Oh please, there is no dilution of talent. Since Ovechkin and Crosby, no one is stepping into the league and putting up 100+ points in their rookie season and dominating the league. It's not happening because the talent level is so high across the board, no 18-year old is able to come in and swing the balance of power that completely. And even when Ovechkin and Crosby put up 100+ points, their teams still sucked ass: their mere addition wasn't enough to lift the Pens and Caps from the league basement to a top-4 seed in a season, or even two seasons. Let's quit with this notion that adding a highly talented pick is an instant panacea to a shitty team that transforms it to near-Cup level in the blink of an eye.

 

[The Panther]

The worst teams need the most help.

Just let teams tank. Why do people care so much about this?

Exactly. "Tanking" is a natural, inevitable aspect of clubs reaching a non-competitive stage.

Having a few really bad teams each season is good for the NHL. Fans enjoy it.

When exactly did this idea get started that everything has to be about parity and competitive mediocrity? It's much better when there are great clubs, average clubs, and crappy clubs, instead of 30+ teams of interchangeable, boring mediocrity.

What the NHL should be worried about is clubs in weak markets. Not manipulating competition.

Also, there should be less playoffs, not more. The NHL already allows way more clubs to compete for the championship than any other pro-sport league. Make the playoffs shorter, not longer. Do we really want six months of regular season to be completely meaningless?

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

Somebody has to finish last. Abolish the lottery.

If you pick #1 overall, you can't pick in the top 3 for the next 3 years. If you pick #2 overall, you can't pick in the top 3 for the next 2 years. If you pick #3 overall, you can't pick in the top 3 the next year.

Example, even if Chicago finished with the least amount of points this season, the best they could pick is #4, and that would apply for the following 2 years as well.

 

[redwings25]

1vs8 ect for playoffs and every team that doesnt make the playoffs get the same odds for every pick Just draw balls for all of em.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Somebody has to finish last. Abolish the lottery.

If you pick #1 overall, you can't pick in the top 3 for the next 3 years. If you pick #2 overall, you can't pick in the top 3 for the next 2 years. If you pick #3 overall, you can't pick in the top 3 the next year.

This is a great idea, but it doesn't go far enough. I say we extend it.

-- Pick 4th? You can't pick in the top-4 the next 2 years.
-- Pick 5th? You can't pick in the top-5 the next 2 years.
.
.
.
-- Pick 16th? You can't pick in the top-16 the next 2 years.

If you're bad, you get one shot at a top pick and then f*** you. The guy is going to college / going to stay in college, you have strategic reasons to not play him in the NHL all season, you try playing him and it doesn't go well, ... it doesn't matter, there's your top pick, f*** you.

If you're pretty good but not good enough to get into the playoffs, you clearly don't need that much help so you obviously don't need to be picking top-16 that often; take your pick, figure your shit out. If you can't, f*** you.

We quit enabling losers who suck, induce them to get better and if they can't ... well, f*** them.

 

[SnuggaRUDE]

Creating the lottery caused this nonsense. Solving it by making the lottery more complicated isn’t improvement.

The league should eventually expand the playoffs that seems inevitable.

 

[Dr Jan Itor]

This is a great idea, but it doesn't go far enough. I say we extend it.

-- Pick 4th? You can't pick in the top-4 the next 2 years.
-- Pick 5th? You can't pick in the top-5 the next 2 years.
.
.
.
-- Pick 16th? You can't pick in the top-16 the next 2 years.

If you're bad, you get one shot at a top pick and then f*** you. The guy is going to college / going to stay in college, you have strategic reasons to not play him in the NHL all season, you try playing him and it doesn't go well, ... it doesn't matter, there's your top pick, f*** you.

If you're pretty good but not good enough to get into the playoffs, you clearly don't need that much help so you obviously don't need to be picking top-16 that often; take your pick, figure your shit out. If you can't, f*** you.

We quit enabling losers who suck, induce them to get better and if they can't ... well, f*** them.

Nah. Just the top 3 is fine.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Going away from the 1 vs 8 format never made sense. So if your team barely makes it into the playoffs, makes it in game 82 by 1pt over the 9th seed, you shouldn't have to face the top seed in the conference?

Plus when we see 1 vs 8 upsets, it makes those upsets that much sweeter. And we all love the underdog in the heavily favoured series.

Truth is, there are far too many good teams getting taken out in the first round in very close series.

 

[Faceboner]

Bring back play in rounds teams that make that are locked in get the advantage of an extra rest period while 4 teams battle for a WC spot

 

[iamjs]

Return to the 1 vs 8 format, abolish the lottery. Playoffs should never have been messed with and we have a lottery because people actually bitched about the expansion (under 1992 rules) Senators being too bad. They ended up with arguably the biggest bust in history.

Just stop it. Teams deliberately tank for draft odds now

They instituted a lottery because of the Sens' owner telling people that they were deliberately tanking games.

History of the Ottawa Senators (since 1992) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

The current playoff format is a big reason why the cup final almost never lives up to the hype.

The first round is always by far the most exciting and unfortunately everything goes downhill from there in terms of excitement and competiveness.

Sweeps and blowouts aren't fun to watch.

 

[albator71]

I mean right now in the East if it was 1vs8 it would be the same matchups
NYR/PIT
BOS/TBL
FLA/TOR
CAR/NYI

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Nah. Just the top 3 is fine.

In your opinion. In my opinion, top-16 is fine.

Or, ... and this is going to sound really crazy to some people ... we could quit pretending we're fixing a problem when we're creating other problems with a "solution" to a "problem."

 

[The Panther]

The current playoff format is a big reason why the cup final almost never lives up to the hype.

The first round is always by far the most exciting and unfortunately everything goes downhill from there in terms of excitement and competiveness.

Sweeps and blowouts aren't fun to watch.

This is exactly right.

Extend the playoffs...?? WTF?? The playoffs are already way too long.

As it is, the playoffs are two months long. That is crazy. Two months is 1/3 the length of the regular season.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

The current playoff format is a big reason why the cup final almost never lives up to the hype.

The first round is always by far the most exciting and unfortunately everything goes downhill from there in terms of excitement and competiveness.

Sweeps and blowouts aren't fun to watch.

My god, this isn't 1995-1998, where all the Finals were sweeps and the latter 3 were mostly expected. This isn't 1992, where 2 of the division finals, both of the conference finals and the Finals were sweeps. Unless you've got some way to set up the playoffs to guarantee excitement throughout to whatever level you deem acceptable, eventually someone's going to get swept in a later series, someone's going to get blown out in a later series, and you're going to end up with a Finals that turns into a mismatch.

 

[DudeWhereIsMakar]

I think tanking can be handled based on how often that team has gone top three in the draft by decreasing the percentage.

 

[pabst blue ribbon]

The league doesn't need to "combat" tanking, determine draft order by reverse standings and have the free market of prospects determine how much and how intense the tanking will be

 

[KingsOfCali25]

Easiest thing in the world. Go back to normal 1-8 playoff format until the NHL expands to 36 teams (Salt Lake City, Houston, Atlanta, Quebec City). After that expand the playoffs to 1-16 for each conference. It stops teams from tanking because only four teams won't make the playoffs (2 from each conference), so you'll need to have a decent roster incase you sneak into the playoffs as 14-16 seed. Make the first round a best of 3 to help the lower seeds with upsets. After ever round, you reorder the playoffs for lowest seed gets highest seed. So if #1 seed loses to #16 seed than the #16 seed would get the next highest seed to advance (#2 seed). If the players don't want to play the extra games than shorten the season to 74 games. Let's just make it a March Madness style tournament. I mean playoff hockey is the best thing in all of sports and who wouldn't want more of it.

This season would have Montreal (73 points) and Ottawa (74 points) fighting for the last seed in the East instead of settling for a top 5 pick. And you'd have Anaheim (57 points) as the last seed in the West, even though they are likely to get the 3rd overall pick this season.

Also, don't reseed the draft after a playoff exit. You'd have the teams that don't make the playoffs as the first four picks and then lowest point totals as they exit the playoffs each round. So if Anaheim somehow upsets Dallas than Anaheim wouldn't be picking 5th, they'd be picking way later and Dallas would be picking around 20th overall depending on who gets upset in the first round. Then if Anaheim loses in the 2nd round they would pick 21st overall.

Let's have major chaos!

 

[Yorkshire Leaf]

If you want to expand the play offs (big if) & want to incentivise finishing higher up the standings, I’d propose the following. 1st gets a bye to round 2.

Play in round (5 games)

M1 - 5th v 10th
M2 - 6th v 9th
M3 - 7th v 8th

Round 1 (7 games)

M4 - 2nd v lowest ranked winner M1/2/3
M5 - 3rd v second lowest ranked winner M1/2/3
M6 - 4th v highest ranked winner M1/2/3

Round 2 (7 games)

1st v lowest ranked M4/5/6
Second ranked M4/5/6 v Third ranked M4/5/6

 

[The Panther]

I think tanking can be handled based on how often that team has gone top three in the draft by decreasing the percentage.

First, explain why "tanking" is bad.