Not sure which thread to put this in, but does anybody else think they should permanently shorten the season and have the extended play-ins? I think owners would like more "playoff games" and more teams would get them. Thus players would also get more "playoff experience".
I think it would be a really smart way to keep more of the fanbases engaged too. They have to find a way to not allow a lottery winner to make the playoffs though.
What do you think?
There is one clear negative and one much smaller one from a business standpoint.
It seems to me that there will be fewer games, so the added interest you mention would need to bring in enough extra revenue to cover for that.
Let's say they cut the season to 78 games, with the top four teams in each conference playing a 3 game round robin for seeding rights, the next eight in each conference playing a best of 5 playin series and the remaining seven teams being done for the season. If the playin series went as this season, averaging four games per series, then the difference in number of games compared with an 82 game regular season and 16 playoff teams:
the 8 teams in the conference round robins would play one game fewer each
the 16 teams in the playin series would average the same number of games
the remaining 8 teams (assuming 2021-2 on, when the league will have 32 teams playing) get 4 fewer games each
All in all when it is finished the NHL will have conducted 20 fewer games. The main problem is with the bottom teams, which would have two fewer home games each without any additional interest to monetize to make up for the decreased revenue.
I don't see this as very important, but planning is harder if this year's system is used, where each round is re-seeded based on which teams are left. That makes it harder (and sometimes more expensive) to plan ahead, as often teams won't know their next opponent until all games in the round are finished. Travel and hotel plans are easier to manage when made ahead of time and on the worst occasions very difficult when made only a couple of days ahead of time. Business-wise it is better to scrap reseeding every-round, but on the other hand the seeding round robins played by the top 8 teams becomes at least a little more important (at least theoretically) if the seeding is done every round.