What if...the NHL held a mid-season tournament every year?

[Rorschach]

Looking at the thread "" where it "laments that teams fans should resign themselves to not winning the Cup due to the NHL being a 32 team/1 Cup a year league, I wondered: the NHL season is so long with 82 games...there's plenty of room for things other than regular season games.

Maybe make it a round robin tourney, totally different format than the Stanley Cup Playoffs, where the tourney games count towards the regular season game count and every team can participate. Maybe make the series take 3 games but since it's round robin, you can lose a series but still win the tourney. And maybe have a set of smaller player awards for "best of" the tourney.

This would give players something maybe to play for and give the NHL two chances to showcase the best players. And would replace the All-Star Game stuff, although there could still be a couple of days for contests like shooting, skating, etc.

Obviously this would take quite a bit of thought, logistics and planning. But maybe could make for some more meaningful games and put good players in the news more often?

Click to read more...

 

[SUX2BU]

 

[AvroArrow]

Lets just start giving our participation trophies

 

[jkrdevil]

Teams already play an 82 game tournament and don’t really care about the trophy that comes with winning that. I can’t see them caring about a new mid-year tournament that has no history.

 

[snag]

Baseball has 30 teams, 162 games and half the teams in the playoffs.... and I was pissed when they changed the format to have 3 divisions and a wild card. But I am also a purist who will argue until I'm blue in the face with anyone who says "tie goes to the runner" (lol) and feels video replay has no place in baseball.

So that's a no from me.

 

[DuckyGirard]

Teams already play an 82 game tournament and don’t really care about the trophy that comes with winning that. I can’t see them caring about a new mid-year tournament that has no history.

You seem to be proving the point, half the reason no one cares is because it's a dragged out 82 games.

A short brisk tournament could be something cool.

A simple way to make it work is allow teams to give out cash performance bonuses(that aren't counted as part of the cap).

I think it'd dovetail with gambling too. If it became a march madness brackets styled tournament.

Seems like a great idea if we're in a flat cap era, and want to jump into gambling.

 

[the4thlinegrinder]

I could see them doing some sort of summer prospect tournament in place of the usual prospect camps. Maybe have every teams prospects play within their division (7 games), then the top team in each division plays a single elimination 1vs4, 2 vs 3 bracket for the trophy. It might be a bit niche though but I think a lot of hockey fans would enjoy it. Gives a look at the future of each team and gives fans their hockey fix between free agency and training camp.

 

[Bear of Bad News]

Looking at the thread "" where it "laments that teams fans should resign themselves to not winning the Cup due to the NHL being a 32 team/1 Cup a year league, I wondered: the NHL season is so long with 82 games...there's plenty of room for things other than regular season games.

Maybe make it a round robin tourney, totally different format than the Stanley Cup Playoffs, where the tourney games count towards the regular season game count and every team can participate. Maybe make the series take 3 games but since it's round robin, you can lose a series but still win the tourney. And maybe have a set of smaller player awards for "best of" the tourney.

This would give players something maybe to play for and give the NHL two chances to showcase the best players. And would replace the All-Star Game stuff, although there could still be a couple of days for contests like shooting, skating, etc.

Obviously this would take quite a bit of thought, logistics and planning. But maybe could make for some more meaningful games and put good players in the news more often?

I may have missed it in your post, but what's the reason why this would be a good thing? (And what would make the games "more meaningful"?)

 

[snag]

I could see them doing some sort of summer prospect tournament in place of the usual prospect camps. Maybe have every teams prospects play within their division (7 games), then the top team in each division plays a single elimination 1vs4, 2 vs 3 bracket for the trophy. It might be a bit niche though but I think a lot of hockey fans would enjoy it. Gives a look at the future of each team and gives fans their hockey fix between free agency and training camp.

This got me thinking about how much I miss the Canada Cup.

 

[tarheelhockey]

If it takes a chunk out of the regular season schedule, I’m listening.

I’d 100% rather see my team play an elimination game for a second-rate trophy, than their third game against a cellar dweller in another division. At least half the regular season is a blur of unnecessary games.

 

[tenken00]

So what if the league has more teams to beat out? Just think of how much sweeter it is when you beat out all of them and win the whole damn thing.

 

[innitfam]

It sounds alright I guess but season is already long enough IMO

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

No way. If they're gonna do some thing like that, do it in the summer.

 

[Rorschach]

I may have missed it in your post, but what's the reason why this would be a good thing? (And what would make the games "more meaningful"?)

I think my original post wasn't clear enough, going by your post (appreciated you pointed out the main question without any rudeness), and other posts above:

Stipulations and Goals:
1) All of these "tournament games" would be part of the 82 game season. It would REMOVE a game from certain players' schedules as the tourney would take place around the same time as and replace the meaningless All-Star game...players would play no more games than they already play

2) If these games have some more immediate impact/importance, this gives the NHL and the teams a lot of excuses to sell more tickets, hype for TV showings, and highlight more players by giving more awards in similar format to the lower leagues/international tournaments; normally these games would just be in the middle of the season and not down the stretch so the games would have otherwise little meaning

3) In order to incorporate these games as part of the regular season count, all of the teams would have to participate and that means even stars who play for bad teams could get time to shine; if you play for the 27th best team but you're maybe a top 40 player in the league, you get no exposure in the Stanley Cup playoffs but in this format, maybe you get a top scorer or MVP or whatever for this tourney

4) Normal NHL awards only give a few traditional awards and only one award for the whole league...this tourney could give awards per conference and include the entire NHL as stated in point 3, not just the best teams; again, giving the NHL more opportunity to show off good players and even for non-playoff teams to show off good players

5) There could be another set of trade deadline dates in the first half of the season, before the tournament, giving fans another trade deadline to look forward to

6) This gives teams another chance to shine, not just one winner and one loser of the Stanley Cup; as a Kings fan, not only did we win 2 in 3 years, but as the team rebuilds, our fanbase knows our team has one of the few owners in the league who will give us yet another chance to win again in the next five years; the other 80% teams and their fans have basically no chance. The same 5 teams keep trying to contend, another maybe 5 teams float around, the rest don't try hard enough. That's why the same five teams keep winning the Cup and only one other team, a floater team, won one Cup since 2010 (St. Louis). So the odds are actually much worse than 1 in 32 for the non-contender, non-floater teams.

 

[holy]

There should be 82 tournaments a season each team plays in where the winner is awarded points and at the end of the season, they use the rankings to create a new mega tournament where the top half of the league plays each other for a silver dish.

I’m thinking a giant spoon, what about you guys?

 

[Zuluss]

Just split the league into two: A-league that has a chance to compete for the Cup and B-league where teams have to be promoted first (say we have 16 teams in each league).
Make the season shorter and playoffs only three rounds; relegate bottom 4 teams from A and promote best 4 teams from B.
Salary cap and floor can be somewhat different in A and B.
There could also be some sort of postseason for league B for a separate award (like Champions League and UEFA Cup in soccer).

 

[Mikeshane]

I don't really like it being mid season.

I was thinking about a summer tournament with maybe 4 teams where you get a bunch of the best players from the AHL and other unsigned players get invited to play as a way to get exposure to scouts. It wouldn't be a big thing but it could give some summer hockey to watch.

 

[jetsforever]

Sounds like another terrible NBA idea

 

[alko]

Players are not robots. They should rest.

 

[GoldenSeal]

I’d like to see a separate playoff for teams who don’t make the playoffs

 

[Reaser]

What I've always liked about the Stanley Cup is that it matters, or at worst there's the appearance that it matters. Star player will play with broken ribs to win it. Players will sacrifice their bodies, a broken leg to win it. Etc.

Other sports it feels more selfish, like if it happens it's cool because they can talk about their ring(s) they won, individually, but if it doesn't happen they're rich anyway and fame is equally and for some more important than winning a championship. That's the NBA, to me. NFL gets more like that every year though the Super Bowl still feels, maybe 50/50, like it has some of that importance.

In those sports individual fame/social network followers is essentially their 'other' championship trophy, or for many players, seemingly more important than the main league championship. That's not really part of hockey's culture as much, thankfully, so it's all about and only about the Cup. As it should be.

A 2nd tier championship in some mid-season tournament as suggested, then would be equal to and be as stupid as a NBA player caring more about how much social network attention his pregame outfit gets than winning the Larry O'Brien Championship Trophy.

 

[Henkka]

Soccer Cup system could work as the only extra tournament. That doesn't add much games, but could add a lot of interest.

Like, all of the 32 teams would qualify for the tournament at mid-season, something like it would start after all teams have passed the 41-game mark and use points percentages for rankings.

Could be Divisional format to reduce travelling.

in Division

1st round
--------------
1st vs. 8th
2nd vs. 7th
3rd vs. 6th
4th vs. 5th

1-game winners on the next round. Best of 1. Raw system.

2nd round
winner 1 vs. winner 2
winner 3 vs. winner 4 etc.

1-game winners on the next round. Better on standings have always the home advantage. The single game is played on their arena. Best winner will play against the worst points percentage winner.

Divisional final, winner goes on the Conference final

Conference final, winner goes to the NHL final against East/West winner.

NHL final.

This would mean 5 extra games for the finalists, 4 extra games for the Conference finalists, 3 for Divisional finalists, 1-2 for others. 62 games in total.

Not a big deal?

Usually these create surprise stories in soccer, because almost any team can win any other team in one single game. Rarely on playoff-series. But it could be nice incentive for teams who are having bad seasons, already falling out from playoff race, to have something meaningful to play for.

Also some conteder could be unlucky and have injury bug on that point of season, and fall out earlier than expected. It just creates stuff and buzz. Marketing. Something to write about on the boring part of the long regular season.

 

[trick9]

Winner gets a free pass to the Stanley Cup finals?

I wouldn't mind changing something about the regular season as it's really long but i don't think this is it.

 

[Henkka]

Winner gets a free pass to the Stanley Cup finals?

I wouldn't mind changing something about the regular season as it's really long but i don't think this is it.

Maybe Tournament winner could seal their playoff spot (wild card spot from their conference) at maximum. But I would not mix it more than that. And some extra money for the winners after winning every round. There has to be some incentive.

 

[blundluntman]

It'd be less important than an all star game