How to fix the Playoff Format & Tanking Issue

[dgibb10]

Nobody has talked about the logistics of the original proposals.

Tournament of Shame (aka draft tournament):
* When would you have the tournament play? While the play-in or playoffs are going? Squeeze it between the Stanley Cup and Draft Day/Free Agent Day? Would you rather watch the best teams, mediocre teams or worst teams play.
* Where would they play? Have teams travel like regular season or single NHLPA compliant arena? Mullet Arena had to go through modifications for the Coyotes.
* Who would want to watch the worst teams? Good luck getting a TV contract.
* Why would the Owners want to pay the expenses (there are a lot of other costs than just players, coaches, and facilities) just to battle for the 1OA pick?
Summary: This would be expensive for only true fanatics to watch for too little reward while shaming players.

Play-In: In all the years of having 16 team playoffs, only one eighth seed has won the Cup (2012 Kings). Play-ins seems great, but people will quickly figure out the play-in teams will never win and stay home. It simply dilutes the playoffs. It will make hot streaky scorers, hot handed goaltenders, and peaking teams wait at home when they should be playing.

TL;DR: Too much expense for something nobody but a minority of most fanatical fans would watch. Averaging the last three seasons for draft order seems plausible.

The biggest issue.

Currently players are not paid for the playoffs. Would you be paying players for this tournament?
If not, why would they participate.
If yes, you would have to change payroll structure completely for playoffs too.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

Technically they'd "get paid" because this would be more revenue generated, which would flow into their regular-season salaries.

The biggest question is still why would players play however many extra games for no other reason than determining who gets the 1st overall pick? No kid is growing up skating on a frozen pond, dreaming of scoring a goal in OT to win the 1st overall pick for their team, celebrating deliriously, shaking hands with Bill Daly and get handed an index card with 1 on it, skating it around the ice WE'RE GONNA PICK 1ST, WOOOOOOOO!, hoping that their name gets written in microscopic print on the back and doesn't get smudged so they can tell their kids and grandkids hold this magnifying glass ... now, put this magnifying glass over it ... see that sort of smudge right there? No, right ... ah goddamn it, ... well, right there - that was my name, I won this. Cool, right?

But in this mystical oft-proposed idea, if you can't win the Cup, the next best thing is winning the 1st overall pick ... which is a lot like waking up on Christmas morning, going to the tree, pulling out a present, ripping off all the wrapping paper, and finding out you've got an empty box and being told the real present is your imagination of what this box can do.

 

[PajamaBoy]

Lol nhl fans crying about tanking. Shut up. This is the most doctored lottery in professional sports.

 

[Dr Salt]

I'm sure Connor Bedard and Mason McTavish are considering increasing the odds of getting Celibrini to join them rather than continuing to improve as a player with what's left of the season. This is why its not actually a problem.

 

[hangman005]

Why don't we just give vegas first overall every year.... we all know Vegas is trading that shit every year so it can become an arms race of who wants to give us the most

 

[Budz]

So sick of the salary cap.

 

[SheldonJPlankton]

1-32.

All teams make the playoffs. Best teams play worst teams. Bad teams get 2 guaranteed playoff revenue games. True contenders get extra round of SC playoff revenue.

League overall more than doubles playoff revenue. Less incentive to tank because teams normally have less incentive to work trade deadline deals. More 'Cup contenders exposed...and legitimate contenders are more likely to meet in the finals vs in earlier rounds.

 

[Brodeur]

Lol nhl fans crying about tanking. Shut up. This is the most doctored lottery in professional sports.

The lottery always just reminds me how bad people are at math and/or just like to whine if their team doesn't win. But I suppose that's why we're inundated with gambling ads nowadays.

The tin foil hat crowd can retroactively come up with a reason why a certain team won, usually it would contradict with the previous year's results.

 

[PajamaBoy]

The lottery always just reminds me how bad people are at math and/or just like to whine if their team doesn't win. But I suppose that's why we're inundated with gambling ads nowadays.

The tin foil hat crowd can retroactively come up with a reason why a certain team won, usually it would contradict with the previous year's results.

Name another league that changes odds for the lottery in the same year the rules would go into effect. Only a small time league does shit like this... Regarding the conspiracy theory stuff yeah ok. The NHL doesn't ever do anything wrong ever that never seems bias or personal. Yeah definitely not the NHL.

 

[Ligue]

Teams tank to have more certainty on the draft. The NHL draft is an absolute mess in terms of projectability. Raise the damn drafting age to at least 19 (20 would be even better) and reduce ELCs to 2 years. Now you just solved the tanking issue.

 

[VaporTrail]

For the tanking, just implement relegation.

 

[theguardianII]

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.


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


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.


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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

You know many of your responses are like all or none. There is only one McDavid, but the argument isn't about the player, it is about the pick NUMBER. Edmonton had some good picks and some busts.

Tanking isn't a problem? I don't think it is except when good teams tank for a year or two and rebound after getting lucky with the player selected. That circumvents what the ideal of a bad team selecting what could be the best player available in the draft for that year. Or now to move up 8? 10? spots in the draft when the scouts rank players by where they think they are in rankings. The odds of a #9 pick is much higher chance of being a NHL player if not a cornerstone player than a #18. That is easily shown by looking at past drafts That is why there are stats of likely success of getting an NHL player from each draft position and round.

Ovy and Crosby, what a bad set of players to use, both went on to key players for those franchises for more than a decade AND cups. Would those team 0have won with Smith and Jones? Crosby draft +1 year - quarter finals, +2 - CUP, Ovy draft+2 playoffs for the next 14 of 15 years and a cup.

That is basically the story of just about all the cup winners, one or more top 3 picks.

Transform a team, 2 or 3 years is a blink in the eye in the NHL and not all will be cup contenders but usually they are in the top third of the league. Right now Dallas is not like those teams with only one top three pick.

Shifting the incentive to tank, okay but giving the best team that doesn't make the playoffs a better pick would encourage greater efforts to be that team or close to it, something to play for when a team is stuck in the mushy middle. And using a rotating average for the bottom three does allow for them to get 3 top 3 picks IF they improve and eliminates them from top 3 picks if they don't improve at the same time. The odds of any top three pick on average is higher than a number 15 pick. There are no guarantees, a team could draft a Yakupov, Patrick, Lafrenière or Slafkovsky who aren't busts yet but not what was expected either. Then again they could have hit on one of the other successful 25 picks that are stars.

The average can be extended to 5 years, 6 and that would eliminate tanking especially if the top 3 are rotated so no one team gets a top overall more than once every 5/6 years.

 

[Section 104]

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.

It could be the fact it goes on for two months, every round is best of seven and it’s June. Warm weather, beaches and parks open, golf, swimming, etc.

 

[Ted Hoffman]

You know many of your responses are like all or none. There is only one McDavid, but the argument isn't about the player, it is about the pick NUMBER. Edmonton had some good picks and some busts.

Many of the posts I respond to have incredibly simplistic views or wildly extrapolate some prior instance. I'm simply poking holes in all the arguments.

If you think that's being "all or none" .... OK.

Tanking isn't a problem? I don't think it is except when good teams tank for a year or two and rebound after getting lucky with the player selected.

Name all the teams who were good - and by that I mean "solidly in the playoffs, won a round and were capable of winning more," decided to "tank for a year or two," got a really high pick they used to select some guy, and rebounded - preferably in a season, two at most - with that guy.

It's OK, take your time with this. We've got lots of time.

That circumvents what the ideal of a bad team selecting what could be the best player available in the draft for that year. Or .......

.... other successful 25 picks that are stars.

The average can be extended to 5 years, 6 and that would eliminate tanking especially if the top 3 are rotated so no one team gets a top overall more than once every 5/6 years.

Um ... OK? I think? I'm not sure what exactly you're arguing for/against/about, but let's pick on that last point you mention.

"Extend the average to 5 years, 6 years." Why not 7? 8? 10? 25? If good teams are tanking for a year or two, wouldn't it make sense to average more years to capture all that good performance to really wash out the couple years of bad performance? And even with this idea, all of you people want to give teams one (1) bite at the best apple with a fractional chance of winning the big price, and pretend that's an instant fix to all the team's problems and that if the team still isnt' godo then it's just the team's fault and "obviously" it's still trying to tank and it's "more fair" that everyone else has a shot, even if it ends up being a team that's anomalously bad but everyone else has had their shot at the big prize so they luck into a crack at it.

For the 895th time: you and others are searching for a problem and then pretending you know how to solve it with no other basis than I have a solution, it exists, therefore it works. You and others keep alleging this "problem of tanking" but can't point to examples where (1) a team was clearly tanking, (2) the team would have been good - able to qualify for the playoffs with little to slight difficulty - but for the obvious tanking, (3) they scored a really good player due to tanking, (4) they instantly became good again because of that player they tanked for, and (5) it clearly paid off with at least one championship, if not mulltiple championships.

 

[Mortimer Snerd]

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.

There's nothing wrong with the playoff formula and tanking is not an issue.

Solve cap circumvention. That IS an issue.