News Article: NHL playoff format will knock out top teams early

[raideralex99]

From AP
"Two of the top four teams in the NHL are guaranteed to be out the playoffs after the second round.
Goodbye Nashville or Winnipeg. Goodbye Boston or Tampa Bay. Thanks for playing.
That's the reality under the divisional playoff format that could pit the top two teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences against each other in round 2 after Pittsburgh and Washington were forced into that predicament in back-to-back playoffs.

[Mod: for copyright reasons, read the rest here]

NHL playoff format will knock out contenders early | CBC Sports

Click to read more...

 

[kanadalainen]

Chevy is correct, but I think that stacking the deck for a predominant number of higher seeds advancing to the third round resonates with a modicum of sense.

(Says the guy who's team came in second overall).

 

[blues10]

Don't know what a solution would be. Getting rid of brackets and highest conference seed plays lowest conference seeds after round 1. Balanced schedule among conferences? 1/8 scenario no wild cards.

Gotta beat good teams to win it all no matter how you shake it. It does suck as a league to have 2 of the top 4 teams golfing after round 2.

Not thinking this will be a priority during the next CBA.

 

[Krauser]

Worse than the 1 vs 2 and 3 vs 4 guaranteed to happen no later than round 2 --
2 vs 8 and 4 vs 7 happen in round 1.

Put another way:
6 of the 8 worst playoff teams (seeds 9-14 if they were combined) only have #5 (Vegas) and #6 (Washington) standing between them and a final 4 appearance,
while #2 (Winnipeg) and #8 (Minnesota) have to get past #1 (Nashville),
and #4 (Boston) and #7 (Toronto) have to get past #3 (Tampa Bay).

The seeds in each quarter are:
Central: 1, 2, 8, 16 = average 6.75
Atlantic: 3, 4, 7, 15 = 7.25
Pacific: 5, 9, 11, 12 = 9.25
Metro: 6, 10, 13, 14 = 10.75

The Central teams are on average 4 seeds higher than the Metro teams, and yet the final 4 is guaranteed to have only 1 team from each group.

 

[AlphaLackey]

If you have divisional play, you have to play down to division champions. Nothing else is remotely fair. Higher seeding because someone lucked out and had more soupcans in their division?

 

[Hobble]

It is awkward having the best match-ups in 2nd round. Kind of leads to a let down in Conference finals before Cup Finals.

 

[Gnova]

I'm fine with the format except the wildcards.

Nashville's reward for the best record in hockey is having to play a long distance multi timezone opponent.
That is BS.

 

[Jets 31]

1 vs 8 makes the most sense , the 1st place team should get a little bonus for finishing 1st . In football the 1st place team gets a bye to the second round .

 

[TorJet]

The “gotta beat good teams anyway” argument doesn’t hold water for me for one two key reasons:

Playoff ticket revenue and fan/player reward.

If the regular season is supposed to mean something, then earning 2nd in the league should give you a higher likelihood of going deeper into the playoffs than teams in your conference that finished below you. The way to give yourself a higher chance is to be given the opportunity to face weaker opposition - the way we measure strength is regular season performance.

Propping up rivalries makes sense to a degree, but will less of us watch a 2nd round matchup if we’re playing Anaheim rather than Nashville? I think not....

We may not get to watch a 3rd round matchup at all, and the Jets stand to lose millions in revenue, by having to face the President’s Trophy winner in the 2nd round....

 

[Maukkis]

You've got to beat them all anyway...

 

[jetsy]

1 vs 8 makes the most sense , the 1st place team should get a little bonus for finishing 1st . In football the 1st place team gets a bye to the second round .

By no means is it a given success. Division winners get their wild cards then its heavy hitters facing each other provided that division winners win. In conference finals, you could still have division regular season winner vs division regular season winner. Quite frankly, I like division champs vs division champ in conference finals. As it was mentioned earlier, do away with the wild cards and have top 4 of the division make playoffs. Division semis>Division finals>Conference finals>Stanley Cup finals.

 

[Spock]

1 vs 8 makes the most sense , the 1st place team should get a little bonus for finishing 1st . In football the 1st place team gets a bye to the second round .

Isn't that what happens with the current format?

 

[jetsy]

Isn't that what happens with the current format?

Not really. We'd be taking on LA, Anaheim and Minny would face off, Vegas would take on SJ. East would probably be all switched around too. Essentially the only consistent similarity would be 1v8.

Edit: Sorry, I think you might be somewhat right for first round. Second round would have higesht seed vs lowest seed again.

 

[King Woodballs]

People bitched about the previous system. The NHL changed it and people bitch about that system lol
But really both were shitty.

I say make it top 8 seeds (1 vs 8 2 vs 7 etc etc) regardless what division you are in.
The problem with the previous system was the 3rd seed division winner usually being in the spot they shouldn’t be

 

[cbcwpg]

Just a quick look what it would be like if 1 VS 8 etc. ( not sure about tie breakers )

TB - NJ
BOS - CLB
WASH - PHIL
TOR - PITTS

NASH - COL
WPG - LOS
VEG - ANA
MINN - SJ

And if was 1 VS 16 with no care to divisions or conferences

NASH - FLD
WPG - NJ
TB - CLB
BOS - PHIL
VEG - LOS
WASH - SJ
TOR - PITTS
MINN - ANA

 

[Evil Little]

Isn't that what happens with the current format?

Look ahead, my logical friend.

 

[WolfgangPuck]

The problem with 1-16 format is that there might be an east coast team vs west coast team matchup like the Wash -SJ and would result in 6+ hour flights plus time zone change would tiring and unfair compared to the Bost-Phil or Vegas-LA series

 

[NoName]

From AP
"Two of the top four teams in the NHL are guaranteed to be out the playoffs after the second round.
Goodbye Nashville or Winnipeg. Goodbye Boston or Tampa Bay. Thanks for playing.
That's the reality under the divisional playoff format that could pit the top two teams in the Eastern and Western Conferences against each other in round 2 after Pittsburgh and Washington were forced into that predicament in back-to-back playoffs.

[Mod: for copyright reasons, read the rest here]

NHL playoff format will knock out contenders early | CBC Sports

Nashville or Tampa getting knocked out seems incredibly unlikely; they are juggernauts and have stacked skill everywhere and facing two teams that squeaked into the playoffs after being abysmal the season before. Those two series are about as safe a bet as you can make in hockey. Jets vs Wild isn't quite as iron-clad because the Wild are an experienced playoff team, but with their injuries, particularly to the blue-line, the Jets are just deeper. It would indeed be an upset if the Jets lost that first round series.

Boston vs. Toronto is a different story: True, Boston is a "top 4 team", but Toronto isn't far behind (tied for 6th). The Leafs are a 105 point team with a goal differential of +45. Bluntly, they are a cut above New Jersey and Colorado and even Minnesota (especially with their injuries), so Boston's path out of that series is in no way clear-cut; they would be the favorites with home-field advantage, but it wouldn't be a big upset if the Leafs went in and beat them.

Of these 4 series, you have two likely blowouts, one series that is not a blowout, but also not likely more that 6 games and one series that is pretty evenly matched on paper and could be a war.

In the second round, it is supposed to be about "who is the best in the division". The thing is divisions are imbalanced; the Atlantic and the Central in particular have a ton of talent at the top. Still, ultimately you cant win the Stanley cup without beating the cream of the crop. Even if an underdog team from the Metro of Pacific division outlasts a powerhouse in the Atlantic or the Celtral, they still have to face that elite team in the Conference finals. Even with this system, I think you still get a deserving team making it to the Finals.

 

[NoName]

Those second round match-ups seem fun. Jets vs Nashville would be insanely great!

 

[Spock]

Look ahead, my logical friend.

The response was to 1v8 in the first round.

If the quoted post implied looking ahead, such as a 1v4 second round or mixing conferences then such indication would have been logical.

 

[sipowicz]

Isn't that what happens with the current format?

Why is Winnipeg playing Minnesota which finished 4th in the Western Conf.

 

[Spock]

Why is Winnipeg playing Minnesota which finished 4th in the Western Conf.

Because it isn't 2v7.

I was commenting on a post that had total focus on the team who finishes first. There was mention of second place teams.

 

[Evil Little]

The response was to 1v8 in the first round.

If the quoted post implied looking ahead, such as a 1v4 second round or mixing conferences then such indication would have been logical.

Jets 31 was posting in a thread that was quoting and linking to a written document that contains the following main premesis:

"Goodbye Nashville or Winnipeg. Goodbye Boston or Tampa Bay. Thanks for playing."

If those necessary eliminations are--as they are at this stage--dependent on the second round, this thread is about the second round or later;

If each conference only has four teams in the second round;

It follows that 1 vs 8 must be a notational shorthand for a seeding system other than the one currently employed (possibly one wherein the top seed always plays the bottom seed, the second seed from the top always plays the second seed from the bottom, ad infinitum, with re-seeding performed after each round).

 

[Spock]

Jets 31 was posting in a thread that was quoting and linking to a written document that contains the following main premesis:

"Goodbye Nashville or Winnipeg. Goodbye Boston or Tampa Bay. Thanks for playing."

If those necessary eliminations are--as they are at this stage--dependent on the second round, this thread is about the second round or later;

If each conference only has four teams in the second round;

It follows that 1 vs 8 must be a notational shorthand for a seeding system other than the one currently employed (possibly one wherein the top seed always plays the bottom seed, the second seed from the top always plays the second seed from the bottom, ad infinitum, with re-seeding performed after each round).

If you don't like the manner in which I based my response, and you wish to continue spending your morning working on this, that's your perogative.

I will not judge your choice of energy exertion, that would be a waste of my own energy.

 

[surixon]

To be the best you need to beat the best, I don't care which round it's in.