Hockey's Playoff Problem

For a bunch of smart guys, NHL owners sure make a bunch of boneheaded decisions.  They're still noncommittal on the PyeongChang Olympics, even though the owners are literally the only people who don't want NHL players there.  Today, IIHF President Rene Fasel finally went far enough to say that if they don't go to Korea, going to Beijing in 2022 might not be an option.  That was a point that finally had to be made.

Anyway, I'm not dedicating yet another post to that topic.  Especially since I've made my thoughts pretty clear.  What I do want to talk about is another glaring problem that the NHL created itself and can easily fix.  Which it needs to do sooner rather than later.  Mainly, the asinine fact that the two best teams (and the two best players) in the league--Washington and Pittsburgh--will meet in the second round of the playoffs!  For the second straight year!

The New York Rangers are the sixth-best team in the league, yet they're looking at being on the road for game one in every round of the playoffs.  Why?  Because, while they have the sixth-best record in the entire league, they're in fourth place in their own division.  And since NHL brass are stuck in the 1980s, the playoffs are division-based.  Which is just stupid.

If you think about it, the Rangers are better off finishing fourth than finishing third.  Finishing third in the Metro means you have to beat both Pittsburgh and Washington just to get to the conference finals.  Meanwhile, finishing fourth and being the No. 1 wild card team means you get to "flip" divisions and play the first-place team in the Atlantic (currently Montreal), followed by another Atlantic Division team.  You'll only have to play one of the big two, and that won't be until the Conference Final.  So, which would you rather be--the fourth-place Rangers (first round opponent: Montreal) or the third-place Blue Jackets (first round opponent: Pittsburgh)?

Let's look at it another way.  Montreal has the fifth-most points in the Eastern Conference, yet, if the Canadiens win their division, they'll be guaranteed home ice advantage in each of the first two rounds.  Meanwhile, Columbus has the third-best record in the East and likely won't have home ice advantage at all.  Or, to break it down even further, either the team with the second- or third-best record is guaranteed to be eliminated in the first round.  But either Ottawa or Boston (currently sixth and seventh in the East) will be guaranteed to advance.  Am I the only one who thinks that makes no sense?

What makes even less sense is that the NHL is doing absolutely nothing to keep its two biggest stars playing as long as possible.  Just imagine for a second Ovechkin vs. Crosby in a seven-game series, with the winner playing for the Cup.  Sure, there's no guarantee that would happen.  But under the current format, what is guaranteed is that it can't.  Only Crosby OR Ovechkin can play in the Eastern Conference Final.  Not both.  But don't worry, you might get to see one of them against Ottawa!

You also aren't even guaranteeing that the eight best teams in a given conference will make the playoffs.  While this doesn't seem likely, it's certainly possible, especially since the Met is a much stronger division than the Atlantic at the moment.  Yet the third-place team in the Atlantic is guaranteed a playoff spot, regardless of how many points they finish with.  Meanwhile, the sixth-place team in the Met (which, while unlikely, could theoretically have the sixth-most points in the East) will definitely be left out in the cold.

They went to this format after the Winnipeg realignment and modeled it after the strictly division-based playoff system that was in place for about 15 years in the 1980s and 90s.  The league and the owners reasoned that it would reduce travel, create rivalries and lead to memorable series like some of those ones in the 80s.  Except there was one big factor they forgot to consider.  In the 1980s, there were only 21-24 teams in the league, with 16 of them making the playoffs.  Since virtually everyone made it, the division-based structure made sense.  With all the expansion over the last 20 years, though, now it's only a little over half the league that makes the playoffs.  That's a big difference.

This system is already a little bit of a compromise.  The NHL originally wanted to go just straight top four teams in each division with no crossover, only coming up with the idea of wild cards after the players pushed back.  Well, the players think this method is stupid, too, so maybe it's time for them to push back again.  Especially because the solution is so simple.

Really, all they need to do is go back to the conference-based system that worked fine from 1994-2013.  I'm fine with division winners getting the top two seeds.  But after that, teams are seeded based on their regular season record.  Not where they finished in the final standings.  It would also guarantee that, since the second-best team couldn't be seeded lower than third overall, the two best teams in a conference can't meet until the conference finals.  And, do what you did in the past and reseed after the first round.  That way, Washington would be guaranteed to face the "worst" team in each round, instead of having to beat Pittsburgh just to get to the conference finals.

With Vegas set to join the league next season, that seems like the perfect time to change the playoff format back to what it should be.  Because the current one is incredibly stupid.  Everyone thinks so except the owners.  Which means we're probably stuck with it for a while.