With the NHL regular season finishing late Thursday night on April 16, the most electric, exciting, gritty and historic playoff is about to begin over the weekend.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs are known for its storylines and upsets. Some of the best teams in the regular season are bounced in the first round and don’t sniff the Stanley Cup Final.
Some of the best examples include the 2023 Bruins vs. the Florida Panthers, 2019 Blue Jackets vs. Tampa Bay Lightning and the 2023 Seattle Kraken vs. the defending champions, the Colorado Avalanche.
Of all the major sports, the Stanley Cup Playoffs have the least complaints from fans as each team really does have a chance to win. If there is something to change about the NHL playoffs, it would be the format.
The NHL has two conferences, East and West, then four total divisions, Pacific, Central, Atlantic and Metropolitan. The top three teams from each division automatically qualify for the playoffs.
The two teams in each conference who aren’t the top three in their divisions are called “wild card” teams.
If the fourth best team in the Atlantic is worse than the fifth placed team in the Metro, the fifth placed Metro team gets in.
There is no real problem with this, the problem is how the first round is set up.
Up until the 2013-14 season, the format was simple: No. 1 vs. No. 8, No. 2 vs. No. 7 and so on. One of the most memorable playoff runs from this format was the 2012 Kings, who won the Stanley Cup as a No. 8 seed.
The first round consists only of divisional play. This year, some of the divisions have the best teams in the league, while others wouldn’t get into the playoffs in a different conference.
Take the Central division for example. The Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild finished in the top three places. However, the Avalanche are the best team in the league, Stars third and Wild seventh.
The Avalanche will play the wild-card L.A. Kings, and the Stars will play the Wild. So a team that performed extremely well during the regular season isn’t rewarded with a lesser opponent, rather one of the best teams in the league.
By the time the first two rounds are done, only one of these teams will be left alive, whereas the No. 1 vs. No. 8 format would give each of them significantly better chances to get into the second round.
Similarly, the Atlantic Division faces a similar problem. The Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens are fourth, fifth and sixth in league wide ranking.
The Sabres will play the wild-card Boston Bruins, and the Lightning will play the Canadiens. The exact same problem happens in both conferences: rewarding what conference your team happens to be in, rather than your team’s performance.
The point is, these matchups never would’ve happened in the old playoff format, and either would’ve produced better upsets or better playoffs down the line.
So why did the NHL change their playoff format? In short, the answer is money. On one hand, something divisional matchups offer in the first round are intense rivalries which we’ll see with the Pittsburgh Penguins and Philadelphia Flyers this year.
However, with the No. 1 vs. No. 8 format, the Bruins and Canadiens would play each other in the first round, a rivalry that dates back 100 years as both teams are “Original Six” franchises.
Another reason is better TV ratings. If two similarly skilled teams play in the first round, then it’s more likely the series will go to six or seven games then a sweep. The travel for teams is also a bit easier, as most teams are pretty close to others in their division.
However, the Canadiens and Lightning will play each other in the first round with 1,300 miles separating them. The same is true for the Edmonton Oilers and Anaheim Ducks matchup as nearly 1,400 miles separate them despite being in the same division.
Avalanche star defenseman Cale Makar commented on the playoff format saying, “I feel like all the players want back to one-to-eight.”
The playoff changes aren’t expected to be talked about in the next NHL CBA (collective bargaining agreement) and it’s unlikely the format will change anytime soon despite outcry from players, fans and executives.
Afterall, this is playoff hockey, so all of this could be turned on its head within the first round.
