NHL, NHLPA likely to extend playoff format another season UPD: extended

Tom ServoMST3K

In search of a Steinbach Hero
Nov 2, 2010
27,751
18,484
What's your excuse?
The format is fine IMO. Every system has certain flaws, but at least the flaws in this one have silver linings.

1st round matchups can be warped, but at least it establishes rivalries.

2nd round matchups can be between the best two teams in the league, but at least we get interesting 2nd round matchups, where before that was the worst round to watch.
 
  • Like
Reactions: NEPA

Night Shift

Registered User
Nov 3, 2014
9,794
4,557
Florida
I used to hate the current format when it first came out and preferred the 1-8 2-7 ECT.. But I understand now why they created it, its not just the rivalries in each division but it cuts down on travel. And travel is likely the main reason imo.

I'm fine with the current format, they don't need anymore changes.
 

coolboarder

Registered User
Mar 4, 2010
1,424
296
Maryland
Remove wild card system and change the schedule matrix to reflect more focus on the divisional play. I would rather to scrap the conference format. There are just too many teams to justify the home/away format. Do we really have to visit all 30 NHL cities? That's a lot of miles to cover and Pacific teams are at a disadvantage with north/south about 1,000 miles apart while the Metropolitan teams just cover about 300 miles apart and Atlantic divisions, just 6 of 8 teams are about 500 miles apart and more than 1,000 from North and Florida teams. When you add up mileage over the career, the players from Western Conference will be burnt out faster before Eastern Conference ever will. That is why I favors divisional playoff more . Unless we invent a Star Trek warp zone "Scott, beam me up", we will never be equal in term of travel.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SwaggySpungo

StreetHawk

Registered User
Sep 30, 2017
25,607
9,435
I used to hate the current format when it first came out and preferred the 1-8 2-7 ECT.. But I understand now why they created it, its not just the rivalries in each division but it cuts down on travel. And travel is likely the main reason imo.

I'm fine with the current format, they don't need anymore changes.
If the east prefers 1-8 then they can do that.

But I’m sure western teams would rather do the division format even if there will come a time when the 5th place team will miss out and have more points than the other division, but if you’re playing a division heavy schedule such as only 2 games between PAC and Cen that leaves 5 games against 6 of your division foes and 4 games against the last one. So, your success is based on how you perform in your division.

Right now it’s 5 teams from the central making it. Last season it was an even split.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SwaggySpungo

StreetHawk

Registered User
Sep 30, 2017
25,607
9,435
Remove wild card system and change the schedule matrix to reflect more focus on the divisional play. I would rather to scrap the conference format. There are just too many teams to justify the home/away format. Do we really have to visit all 30 NHL cities? That's a lot of miles to cover and Pacific teams are at a disadvantage with north/south about 1,000 miles apart while the Metropolitan teams just cover about 300 miles apart and Atlantic divisions, just 6 of 8 teams are about 500 miles apart and more than 1,000 from North and Florida teams. When you add up mileage over the career, the players from Western Conference will be burnt out faster before Eastern Conference ever will. That is why I favors divisional playoff more . Unless we invent a Star Trek warp zone "Scott, beam me up", we will never be equal in term of travel.
You take the good of seeing Tor, Montreal, NYR, Phi etc but you get some of the non exciting matchups. Since hockey players don’t rest like nba guys fans get a chance to see everyone. Think that’s important.
 

Price is Wright

Registered User
Feb 5, 2010
12,494
5,571
essex
My personal dream is a return to the 1980 format of 16 teams ranked 1/16, 2/15, 3/14, etc.

However I expect the NHL will want to eventually do a preliminary playoffs for the wildcard spots (WC1 v WC4, WC 2 vs WC3) before the proper playoffs begin.
 

CHRDANHUTCH

Registered User
Mar 4, 2002
35,232
4,218
Auburn, Maine
My personal dream is a return to the 1980 format of 16 teams ranked 1/16, 2/15, 3/14, etc.

However I expect the NHL will want to eventually do a preliminary playoffs for the wildcard spots (WC1 v WC4, WC 2 vs WC3) before the proper playoffs begin.
WC 3 AND 4 already exist.... they are the 9 and 10
 

SwaggySpungo

Registered User
Oct 18, 2018
768
969
Last season 3/4 division winners made the Conference Finals, with the exception of Nashville who lost to Winnipeg, the 2nd best team in the Central, who ultimately fell to Vegas who was actually below them in points by 5.

NHL is not the NBA where everyone expect GS Warrior to be in the finals. That's more of a sure thing than TB getting into the Cup finals.

Right now Cal/SJ are battling for first in the Pacific to avoid Vegas in round 1. But, that does not mean that the division winner is going to be an overwhelming favourite should the 2nd place team end up defeating Vegas in round 1. All it means is that your chances of getting to round 2 are higher being the top seed vs being the #2 seed due to your first round opponent.

And...?
 

rkhum

Registered User
Aug 3, 2011
2,235
51
The format is fine IMO. Every system has certain flaws, but at least the flaws in this one have silver linings.

1st round matchups can be warped, but at least it establishes rivalries.

2nd round matchups can be between the best two teams in the league, but at least we get interesting 2nd round matchups, where before that was the worst round to watch.
No it’s not fine. It’s terrible, stupid, and unfair.
It should be 1-8...you know Rangers Islanders would have been a match up a few years ago but for this format...so much for enhancing rivalries.

And travel? Seriously? What is this, house league?
 

Ted Hoffman

The other Rick Zombo
Dec 15, 2002
28,861
8,113
I feel like I need to make a note somewhere about why 1/16 happened in the first place [spoiler: the schedule was perfectly balanced, everyone played everyone else 4 times - 2 home, 2 away, no more and no less] and why it's never going to happen again under the current scheduling format and how if it were tried, it would be patently unfair to some group of teams. Then, I can just copy/paste it as needed.
 

MNNumbers

HFBoards Sponsor
Sponsor
Nov 17, 2011
7,627
2,486
I feel like I need to make a note somewhere about why 1/16 happened in the first place [spoiler: the schedule was perfectly balanced, everyone played everyone else 4 times - 2 home, 2 away, no more and no less] and why it's never going to happen again under the current scheduling format and how if it were tried, it would be patently unfair to some group of teams. Then, I can just copy/paste it as needed.

And, I would like to add to that that it seems very true as well that the schedule needs to match the playoff system NO MATTER WHAT THEY ARE.

Let's just try this, for example......
Seattle adds to the league, and we have a 4 x 8 division structure.
The league seems dead set on the home/home, so we will keep that, but we will try 2 different matrices for the rest....

SYSTEM #1:
Versus your entire conference (east or west) you play 3 games. That's 45, to go along with the 32 OOC games, so you have 5 more games. They will be singles against teams in your own division (Rangers v Islanders , eg).
This is a very balanced schedule. The only difference in the schedules across the conference is 5 games.
The playoffs should be 1-8 in this system.

SYSTEM #2:
We play home/home against all the teams in the other 3 division for 48 games.
Remaining 34 games against your own division. In this system, the difference in schedules is 20 games. That's 25% of the year. That's a lot. You can't call this balanced in any sense.
So, in this system, the playoffs should be 1-4 in each division.

Clearly you can create other hypothetical systems as well, but these illustrate the point.

And, further, these 2 are exactly the 2 matrices which best fit the needs of the EAST in the first case, and the WEST in the latter case. And, of course, therein lies the argument.
 
Last edited:

Ted Hoffman

The other Rick Zombo
Dec 15, 2002
28,861
8,113
I don't even care about trying to find the "ideal" schedule format. There isn't one to match any playoff format one would like to use once we go to 32 teams. There are "better" or "worse" ideas, but everything still has flaws.

Figure out which idea causes you [the general you, not you MNNumbers] to hold your nose the least, and cast your vote for it. Quit asking for things that are never going to happen, because you're only going to give yourself angst and frustration.
 

MNNumbers

HFBoards Sponsor
Sponsor
Nov 17, 2011
7,627
2,486
I don't even care about trying to find the "ideal" schedule format. There isn't one to match any playoff format one would like to use once we go to 32 teams. There are "better" or "worse" ideas, but everything still has flaws.

Figure out which idea causes you [the general you, not you MNNumbers] to hold your nose the least, and cast your vote for it. Quit asking for things that are never going to happen, because you're only going to give yourself angst and frustration.

I agree completely with this. On every such thread, there are opinions about the home/home, and opinions about how many games against the teams you are in competition against for playoff spots, etc...

Too many ideas and priorities to say 'This is it!!". We all have our preferences.
 

Ted Hoffman

The other Rick Zombo
Dec 15, 2002
28,861
8,113
I'm much more worried about how scheduling gets compressed, especially late in the season. Fix that first. Get rid of 5-in-7s and 4-in-6s, and limit how many times teams can do 3-in-4 (and try to spread out times playing a fresh team on the 2nd night vs. being the fresh team catching one on the 2nd night evenly).

If I'm really getting to pick a schedule format, I would do more home-and-home, back-to-back night series vs. division rivals (2 such series, each starts one of them at home) but require 2 days off before/after. One goes in the front half of the schedule, one in the back half, and all division teams get played at least once in the final 10 games.

Those would be more impactful than doing some ad-hoc format change based on this week's outrage. At least try to start there, see what it does.
 

jkrdevil

UnRegistered User
Apr 24, 2006
42,636
12,485
Miami
You aren’t going to fix the scheduling becoming compressed late in the season because the league/teams want more game post football season that is when fan attention especially picks up.


I’m still in favor of the 4 conference format (especially with 32 teams), where you play the teams in other conferences (what are currently the divisions) twice home and home and the rest of the games within your conference.

You can schedule it where the first 62 games of the season for each team is a double round robin with the full league and then rest conference/divisional games down the stretch.

Also, re: current playoff format, the matchups basically ended up 1v8, 2v7 in each conference anyways this year
 

EightyOne

My posts are jokes. And hockey is just a game.
Nov 23, 2016
12,697
12,034
I don't get why people have such a thing for this like it's more scientific or something. Point totals are distorted by an unbalanced schedule where certain teams are played more than others. This is still not an "accurate" seeding because of that.

The NHL desperately needs to cultivate more excitement in their product now that they have killed most of the old physical antagonism, and one way is more division games and a heavier emphasis on a division bracket to magnify rivalries. These games are much more exciting than inter-conference ones. Yes you will have years where the 4th seed in one division will clearly be weaker than the 5th place team in a different division, but that's really a small price to pay. Very simple, you gotta finish 4th against your divisional peers to get into the Cup bracket.

Sir, the NHL is currently the most exciting hockey that it has ever been.
 

Ted Hoffman

The other Rick Zombo
Dec 15, 2002
28,861
8,113
You aren’t going to fix the scheduling becoming compressed late in the season because the league/teams want more game post football season that is when fan attention especially picks up.
It doesn't help that the mandatory 5 off day spot exists, because that compresses things more. That space could easily be plugged with a couple games and alleviate some pressure.

That said, I don't think you need to shift that many games to the front [pre-January 1] part of the schedule. 3? Maybe 4? Sure, most of the league has an NFL team in the same city [Canada's 7 + Carolina, St. Louis, and Vegas for now; I'd lump Columbus and tOSU in the "has NFL" group because tOSU football is that big] but even in December, some of those teams are out of the playoff mix and fan interest is waning for those teams. The bigger obstacle is getting teams to play on what they consider to be "non-preferred" dates and being more flexible on I GOTTA HAVE THIS AS A HOME DATE! requests.
 

coolboarder

Registered User
Mar 4, 2010
1,424
296
Maryland
You take the good of seeing Tor, Montreal, NYR, Phi etc but you get some of the non exciting matchups. Since hockey players don’t rest like nba guys fans get a chance to see everyone. Think that’s important.
I wouldn't mind going with 4-team divisions of 8 divisions (no conference) when Seattle enters in the league and if you feel that everyone should visit at least once, I would go with this: 8 games each within the divisions for 24 games and 2 games each outside the division for 56 games and total games would be 80 games (losing one home game) and playoff would be 1 v 2 in divisional then 8 divisional playoff series winners with best non-divisions records would be #1 to #8. With this set-up, very rarely we'd see top 2 in the league being in same division due to the schedule matrix where heavy emphasis would be divisions and outside conference would be important with implication for Round 2 and on. With this set-up, we would be able to get some best possible match-up for the Stanley Cup Final. Series format should be 2-3-2 from round 2 and on where neither teams gain advantage except for game 7. That way, travels would be extremely light for all teams involved rather than travel forth and back especially potential round 2 match-up involving pacific vs atlantic and vice-versa.
 

BigBadBruins7708

Registered User
Dec 11, 2017
13,580
18,348
Las Vegas
No it’s not fine. It’s terrible, stupid, and unfair.
It should be 1-8...you know Rangers Islanders would have been a match up a few years ago but for this format...so much for enhancing rivalries.

And travel? Seriously? What is this, house league?

not to mention 1-8 this year would've given them both Washington/PIttsburgh and Toronto/NYI

so another OV/Crosby matchup and Tavares going against his former team, yup no bad blood there
 
  • Like
Reactions: Melrose Munch

SwaggySpungo

Registered User
Oct 18, 2018
768
969
I don't even care about trying to find the "ideal" schedule format. There isn't one to match any playoff format one would like to use once we go to 32 teams. There are "better" or "worse" ideas, but everything still has flaws.

Figure out which idea causes you [the general you, not you MNNumbers] to hold your nose the least, and cast your vote for it. Quit asking for things that are never going to happen, because you're only going to give yourself angst and frustration.

Once we go to 32, do straight divisional playoffs... PLEASE. That’s all I ask. The current system is so convoluted and dumb.

- Win your division (first 2 rounds).
- Win your conference (round 3).
- Win the Cup (round 4).

I don’t give a rat’s ass about “fair”. If a team isn’t good enough to finish in the top half of their division, I have no time for their crying. “Boo hoo, a team in a different division made the playoffs with 3 fewer points than us. Waaaa!” Don’t like it? Shouldn’t have been the scrub team in your division.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Burke the Legend

Red Dread

Registered User
Oct 19, 2011
1,175
391
Maryland
I wouldn't mind going with 4-team divisions of 8 divisions (no conference) when Seattle enters in the league and if you feel that everyone should visit at least once, I would go with this: 8 games each within the divisions for 24 games and 2 games each outside the division for 56 games and total games would be 80 games (losing one home game) and playoff would be 1 v 2 in divisional then 8 divisional playoff series winners with best non-divisions records would be #1 to #8. With this set-up, very rarely we'd see top 2 in the league being in same division due to the schedule matrix where heavy emphasis would be divisions and outside conference would be important with implication for Round 2 and on. With this set-up, we would be able to get some best possible match-up for the Stanley Cup Final. Series format should be 2-3-2 from round 2 and on where neither teams gain advantage except for game 7. That way, travels would be extremely light for all teams involved rather than travel forth and back especially potential round 2 match-up involving pacific vs atlantic and vice-versa.

The primary issue I have with 4-team divisions is that you'd inevitably have to break a few rivalries to make it work. Further, you kill them off by having them only face each other twice.
 

BigBadBruins7708

Registered User
Dec 11, 2017
13,580
18,348
Las Vegas
The primary issue I have with 4-team divisions is that you'd inevitably have to break a few rivalries to make it work. Further, you kill them off by having them only face each other twice.

agreed.

no reason not to do 8x4

then the schedule can be:

7x division w/ 8x the chosen "rival" = 50 games
2x conference = 16 games
1x other conf = 16 games

82 games

and you build better rivalries with increased division match ups than the forced playoff match ups they have now.
 

coolboarder

Registered User
Mar 4, 2010
1,424
296
Maryland
The primary issue I have with 4-team divisions is that you'd inevitably have to break a few rivalries to make it work. Further, you kill them off by having them only face each other twice.
The issue with regular season is that it's just too many teams to form a rivalries. One extra games (3 with current conference set-up) after home/away doesn't do justice. The Cup Final rematch in regular season would only allow for 2 games and the hatred for each other fade away quickly after 2 years.

Now, if you use 8 games in regular season, then plus the playoffs (15 games in total) the divisional of 1 v 2 playoff first round is justified, all you have to do is to win the division and that forms a rivalry within the division before you focus on other teams and rivalries is not made to last for years (see Vancouver-Chicago of 2009-2011) and Dallas-Edmonton (1997-2002) and their rivalries fade away years after. The divisional rivalries will never fade away due to geographical factor. The local fans cares about their divisional rivalries more than playoff rivalries as they fade away after years of not meeting in the playoffs. The schedule matrix doesn't allow for rivalries to last longer for non-division opponents making rivalries last longer . What made the original 6 special? Too many games against each other (12 regular seasons games plus the playoffs) in 1940's to 60's. What we need is simple, too many games within the division and the first round. After the first round, we then now can focus the pursuit of the Cup. If you create a schedule matrix of 8 games, you develop the hatred for each other every year and the playoff round will explode even further for years to come and maintain the hatred because of 8 games against each other in the division even if they don't meet in the playoffs the year after.

Another reasons for 8 games, you spread out the meeting, at least once or twice a month to give them a break from travelling too far away for Northwest teams (Vancouver, Seattle, Calgary, Edmonton) and to allow them to come home after a quick one-game trip in the midst of their long homestand and be in their own bed by midnight where Eastern conference teams enjoys so much for a long time. As a Vancouver fan, I honestly could careless about the rivalries against the California teams due to this one factor, they often went out for a 3-4 games road trip down south, draining their energy for being on the road and it does not feel a true divisional game due to energy factor being low similar to when Vancouver plays against Calgary or Edmonton, I see a real spirited game all because of energy is high for both teams. When Seattle joins the league, the energy will only increase, depending on how they proceed with the realignment and the schedule matrix. Every time an opponent from the central division or the eastern conference teams that fly in Vancouver for a road game against the Canucks, their energy is draining, I could tell the difference when Calgary or Edmonton comes to town for a game, both teams' energy is so high, the difference is striking. I just don't see the same energy for Canucks road trip to the central or eastern conference when compared to a road games against Oilers and Flames.

That's my reasoning for lobbying for a 8 games schedule matrix with just 4 teams division when Seattle joins the league.
 

NickWIHockey

Registered User
Jan 3, 2013
316
22
Port Washington, WI
i like the idea of a preliminary round prior to the main field. go to 10 teams per conference. this year that would have added a 96 point Montreal team and an 86 point Florida team in the East ,86 point Arizona and 84 point Chicago team in the West. the difference between 8 and 9 in the east was 2 points and in the West was 4 points. in other words the only big gap between the 4 additional teams was the 10 points between East #9 Montreal and E#10 Florida, who had the same number of points as Arizona.

So Best of 3 setup
E7 Carolina (99 points)
vs E 10 Florida (86)
E8 Columbus (98)
vs E9 Montreal (96)

W7 Vegas (93)
vs W10 Chicago (84)
W8 Colorado (90)
vs W9 Arizona (86)

Now please tell me in all seriousness that those 4 matchups wouldnt seriously wet your whistle?
 

oknazevad

Registered User
Dec 12, 2018
470
329
They seriously wouldn't wet my whistle. The playoffs are long enough, and enough of a grind for the players as is. Adding another mini-round will only cause more injuries, and result in poorer quality hockey in the most important round of the season, the Stanley Cup finals.
 

Ad

Upcoming events

Ad

Ad

-->