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

[Iapyi]

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?

I like this idea much better but instead of a giant spoon maybe a cup instead?

 

[Henkka]

The good name for this would be Canada Cup.

And held on years when there's no Olympics or World Cup.

Same kind of break at mid-season in every year. Every year would have this extra tournament.

 

[OKR]

Have non-playoff teams play a tournament in the break before playoffs, but make it U23 and winner gets the best Draft lottery odds

 

[JAK]

Summer league, only players with less than 200 NHL games and below age 25 on July 1st, no roster limit, but game roster remains at 20.
teams can sign players just for the summer league, even from overseas or just drafted players, as long as there's an agreement between NHL and the respective leagues.

Bubble style, each division has one host city that rotates, less travel, more games.
Then the 4 winners + 4 runners up goes to one city for the final bubble.

more games, show case the youth, gives the people working in games summer jobs, good place to look at new referees as well.

lower ticket cost, prioritize growth in the fan base.

 

[Reality Czech]

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

This is why I really like the relegation system used by European sports leagues, although I realize the NHL owners would never agree to such a big change. You'd have to divide the NHL into two leagues where only teams in the top half are eligible to win the Cup. Then there can be a mini playoff where teams from the lower league have a chance to move up to the top league by playing the worst teams from the higher league.

Or, have a mini tournament among non playoff teams where the prize is the first overall pick.

 

[sinDer]

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:
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.



5)

That’s a lot of words for not even explaining how this tournament would actually works.

But in all respect, it sounds like a terrible idea.

 

[HFpapi]

This idea is going to get a lot of flak and be outright rejected by purists, but I don't think it's a terrible idea and it's worth considering.

In a 32 team league, it's not inconceivable that some teams don't win the cup for 100 plus years, maybe never. It's not a horrible idea for there to be "something" else to win.

Let's look at European football as an example. Champions league is as valued as winning the league. This particular mid-season tournament is not replicable by the NHL because all of the best teams are in the same league whereas in football, the worlds best teams are spread amongst many leagues.

There are however various other domestic cups (FA Cup for example) which are not nearly as valued as winning the league but nonetheless fans are happy to say they won some "silverware."

It would take a long time for the trophy awarded in this mid-season tourny to mean anything and it would of course never mean as much as the cup, but the precendent for successful implementation of mid-season tournaments is already there.

 

[powerstuck]

Why not push the league to 35 teams, shorter the season to 70 games and make teams meet only twice (1 home, 1 away game). Leave the playoffs as they are 16 teams, so less than 1 out of 2 make it. Make them 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5 in round 1 and reseed after each round.

Sure it might ''break'' some rivalries but best rivarlies are happening during the playoffs and not during the regular season.

 

[Rorschach]

That’s a lot of words for not even explaining how this tournament would actually works.

But in all respect, it sounds like a terrible idea.

I'm not trying to propose an exact format...there are too many factors/variables and it would be better to establish the rules using a committee of officials, owners, etc. to make sure everyone's "satisfied". There's no way one person sitting at home is smarter than the entire NHL. It's pointless to do so. I just set a few 100% necessary parameters.

 

[Rorschach]

This idea is going to get a lot of flak and be outright rejected by purists, but I don't think it's a terrible idea and it's worth considering.

In a 32 team league, it's not inconceivable that some teams don't win the cup for 100 plus years, maybe never. It's not a horrible idea for there to be "something" else to win.

Let's look at European football as an example. Champions league is as valued as winning the league. This particular mid-season tournament is not replicable by the NHL because all of the best teams are in the same league whereas in football, the worlds best teams are spread amongst many leagues.

There are however various other domestic cups (FA Cup for example) which are not nearly as valued as winning the league but nonetheless fans are happy to say they won some "silverware."

It would take a long time for the trophy awarded in this mid-season tourny to mean anything and it would of course never mean as much as the cup, but the precendent for successful implementation of mid-season tournaments is already there.

Thanks for considering the idea. I'm hoping if the NHL does something or two right in the format and in the marketing (I know, biggest IF of all), it might catch a little fire like TNA did in the NHL's Olympic-replacement tourney.

 

[summer tooth]

They should make the Winter Classic a 4-team tournament, and the winner gets a special 5-day team vacation to the Bahamas

 

[TGWL]

Here's a mid-season tournament to make you feel like you won something but we really know you didn't win the cup... I don't see too many GM's wanting to give out a cash bonus.

 

[Captain Awesome]

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.

I think you are describing the Traverse City prospect tournament, kind of. Something like 6-8 NHL teams participate, and it's full of guys who haven't quite made the NHL yet, so mostly AHLers and other team prospects.

 

[weinsink]

Garbage

 

[wetcoast]

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?

Classic solution looking for a problem.

This isn't freaking baseball from the 90s 16 teams still make the playoffs.

 

[StrictlyCommercial]

Make pre-season a March Madness style tournament. Winner gets to host next years all star game and/or draft. Gives a financial incentive to teams.

 

[Just Linda]

Yeah let's do it. But not every year, every 4th year. And instead of players playing for their teams, they should get divided by some other shared factor, like say region they were born. And since it's the best players across the world, we could call it the World Cup of Hockey.

 

[GoldenSeal]

How about a playoff for the losing teams and the winner of that playoff gets the #1 Pick?

IT'S NUTS, I KNOW!!!

But think about it: You'd get all the fans following the playoffs. Think of the massive jump in revenue.

 

[Rec T]

(checks calendar...yep, summertime dumb idea thread)

 

[DuckyGirard]

(checks calendar...yep, summertime dumb idea thread)

Every other sport on the planet has more than one competition per year.

Even if you count the juniors, the NHL has the fewest Calendar events of any sport.

Basically your best hook is trying to get people to watch a winter sport in the middle of june.

 

[Hrkac Circus]

So every July one team would win the Stanley Cup.
And every January one team would win the Cup Half Full.

 

[DuckyGirard]

So every July one team would win the Stanley Cup.
And every January one team would win the Cup Half Full.

I believe the idea is that there'd be multiple tournaments.

 

[letsgrowcactus]

Modified All-Star tournament, just for fun

Create eight teams, each new team has one "regular" team from each division (use rankings at the time to achieve reasonable balance). "Regular teams" each nominate maybe 8 of their players; coaching staff of new team then chooses the same amount of guys from each team.
With those "new" teams, have a short tournament: two wins to move up a round. With eight teams, that's three "rounds" and seven "series" (14-21 games); 9 games at most by a team. The whole thing takes time over two weeks.
Every participating "regular" team who is part of "new team" gets 2 additional regular season points for making it past round 1;2 more points for round 2; 2-3 more points winning the final round 3 (for the total of 6-7 points for the overall winner; winning team(s) also get some sort of mini-trophy). It's not enough points to completely screw the standings but enough to make the games somewhat meaningful for playoff-competing teams; teams that spend years in hockey purgatory at least get the chance to feel good about the time they were part of the "All-star ice-cream bowl" winning team.
Format of the games could be adjusted if necessary; maybe just 45 minute games, maybe 4-on-4? Eliminated guys can compete in individual contests if they want? Regular season gets shortened by ca. four games games to make space for this thing

 

[Golden_Jet]

Why not push the league to 35 teams, shorter the season to 70 games and make teams meet only twice (1 home, 1 away game). Leave the playoffs as they are 16 teams, so less than 1 out of 2 make it. Make them 1-8, 2-7, 3-6, 4-5 in round 1 and reseed after each round.

Sure it might ''break'' some rivalries but best rivarlies are happening during the playoffs and not during the regular season.

35 teams would be a 68 game season, and players likely not wanting to give 15% of their salaries.
To OP, not a fan of the idea.

 

[Paulinbc]

We have a tournament. When you are mathematically eliminated from the playoffs you are now in the tournament. All points from games count for you starting now. Whoever gets the most points wins the #1 draft pick. Likewise for #2 and #3. Rest of the picks fall in order. Tiebreakers for top 3 picks go on least points in the overall season. Your buffalos and Arizona’s maintain an advantage as they have more games remaining in the ‘tournament’ to collect points.