Or you could do a 3 -2 -1 -0 point system as many other do.
Personally, I tried to suggest a 5 point for a regulation win , via 4 for OTW and 3 for SOW, and so on, down to 0 (still) for a regulation loss. But people don't even understand what I mean, so, obviously not a good idea. Haven't worked hard on it to show how tables would have looked anyways.
I totally understand what you mean with your point system. I find that simple systems are best and even though I suggested doing the home team electing to go for another point or not, the reality is I would never vote for that because it no longer levels the playing field. I do think the weight of OTL is too high at 50% because it is still a loss when it comes down to it. The OT point should be weighted around 25% which means a win would equal 4, an OTL would equal 1, and a loss would equal 0. This again makes things convoluted because really you're just adding time to decide a winner and the loser really gets nothing from it. I think it would be extremely rare to see the loser points add up to bump a team out of the playoffs, which then makes it useless.
** This gets different so stop reading here if you're adverse to change. I'm sure someone somewhere has posted this, I've just never seen it. **
I'm proposing a more complex tournament style playoffs that would be cool to see in pro sports. It should add parity and keep a larger amount of the NHL fan base active throughout the playoffs, generating more revenue. The other idea behind changing the system is to make the financial gain so compelling not to tank, that every team has to work their hardest every season to make the tournament. If they tank they'll lose out on a larger portion of revenue to get a top rated player.
I have two different methods to "seed", its a one or the other, not both, but I like the ideas behind ELO based ranking systems so I figured I'd include it. For those unfamiliar with ELO I'll explain it through this next part.
"The
Elo rating system is a method for calculating the relative skill levels of players in
zero-sum games such as
chess."
The ELO based ranks would change the landscape of regular season outcomes pretty drastically for some teams. This will measure the strength of your opponent and you'll either earn more ELO for beating tougher teams or lose more ELO for letting less tough teams beat you. If you beat a lesser team you gain less ELO and if you lose to a stronger team, you lose less ELO. Teams like the Coyotes last year could have conceivably made it because of their 2nd half surge. This ranking system has more to do with the quality of your opponents than pure wins and losses. The 2nd half of the season would also have a greater impact than early on as teams are on a level playing field early. OT would have no impact on the change in ELO.
The second seeding method would be the standard win, loss, OT loss system we have in place today using points. It's a pretty bland and straight forward system where OTL has a larger impact on a team making into the tournament.
The regular season would consist of 55 game where you play 5 vs your division and 3 vs your conference counterpart. If you finish in the top 8 for MMR/Points in your conference (regardless of division), you move to the 2nd stage.
The second stage (Group Stage) would consist of 16 games where you play 8 teams in a 2 game series in your group (Eastern and Western Conference). The top 4 teams from each group would be placed in the winners bracket and the bottom 4 in the losers bracket. This section is based only on wins and losses, ELO/Points no longer apply here.
The third stage (Bracket Elimination) teams would play a 3 game series in a bracket. The losers in the winners bracket would move to the losers bracket, and losers in the losers bracket would be eliminated. A team could effectively start in the losers bracket and still win the cup if they won every series, and anyone who made it to the winners bracket would have a "life" which would keep them in the tournament. The finals would be a best of 5 bracket reset meaning the loser bracket team would have to beat the winners bracket team in two 5 game series in order to win the cup. The reason for this is the team in the winners bracket would still have a "life" that would need to be eliminated. Here is a visual representation of the bracket.
This will never happen but it would be a cool playoff system. You would have to have a group stage in order for this system to work so having a smaller regular season becomes a necessity.
