1984 playoffs - Habs/Isles series

[Marc the Habs Fan]

Why did the Habs have home ice advantage in this 3rd round matchup when they had 75 points (4th place in the division) to the Islanders' 104 points (division champs) in the regular season?

http://hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/leagues/seasons/nhl19271984.html

http://hockeydb.com/ihdb/stats/playoffdisplay.php?league=nhl1927&season=1984&leaguenm=NHL

Round 3

Series M W L GF GA
New York Islanders 4 2 17 12
Montreal Canadiens 2 4 12 17

Apr 24 New York Islanders 0 3 at Montreal Canadiens
Apr 26 New York Islanders 2 4 at Montreal Canadiens
Apr 28 Montreal Canadiens 2 5 at New York Islanders
May 1 Montreal Canadiens 1 3 at New York Islanders
May 3 New York Islanders 3 1 at Montreal Canadiens
May 5 Montreal Canadiens 1 4 at New York Islanders

Click to read more...

 

[Master_Of_Districts]

I'm sure that someone can answer this more satisfactorily than I can, but I believe that it had something to do with the fact that, for a brief period of time in the early-mid 1980s, home-ice advantage in each Conference Final was determined by a coin toss, rather than Regular Season record.

In this instance, the Habs won the coin toss.

 

[reckoning]

I'm sure that someone can answer this more satisfactorily than I can, but I believe that it had something to do with the fact that, for a brief period of time in the early-mid 1980s, home-ice advantage in each Conference Final was determined by a coin toss, rather than Regular Season record.

Yes. It was a coin toss before the season. The league felt that since so much of a teams schedule was inside their own division, it would give teams in weak divisions an unfair advantage.

Unfortunately, it led to situations like the one above where the Islanders had the top record playing in the best division, yet don't get home ice. Thankfully, the NHL dropped the coin toss experiment shortly after that.