Three Out of Four, No Surprise

Three of the four teams remaining in the Stanley Cup Playoffs are exactly the same as they were back in September.  Meanwhile, in the NBA, all four of last season's conference finalists have already been eliminated.  The Lakers, Celtics and Heat didn't make it out of the first round.  Only the Nuggets did...and Denver was promptly swept by Phoenix in the second round.

That's not a coincidence.  In fact, with the way each league set up its 2020-21 schedule, it was entirely predictable.  Because the NHL's schedule was designed to give teams an appropriate amount of time off.  The NBA's was not.  This is just one of the (entirely foreseeable) results.

I said it then, and I'll say it now: the NBA played way too many games this season.  They started two months later, yet only took 10 games off the schedule, all while having an offseason that was just 10 weeks long.  This after teams spent 10 weeks living and playing in a bubble just to finish last season.  It was a lot to ask.  It was too much to ask.

After the Heat were eliminated, Pat Riley told everyone in the organization to take some time off.  And by "time off" meant actual time off away from basketball.  Because for the Heat and Lakers especially, the 72-day offseason wasn't really an offseason at all.  They went right from the bubble to preparing for the draft and free agency to preseason to playing a condensed season that had all these extra COVID protocols involved.  Needless to say, it was a lot.  Especially for a team that had only 10 weeks "off" after last season.

And not only did they play too many games, there was way too much travel involved.  We were still very much in the midst of a pandemic, yet they had teams repeatedly flying cross-country for absolutely no reason!  Sure, they had the occasional two-game series in the same city, but not many.  And, was there any need to play interconference games?  Sorry, but the answer is "No!"

Do you know how simple it would've been for the NBA to draw up a schedule that didn't include interconference games, thus significantly reducing the amount of travel teams would have to do?  They play two games against each of the 15 teams in the other conference.  That's 30 games.  You take those out, you've still got 52.  Which would've absolutely worked. 

So, of course, they didn't do it.  Instead, they took out 10 conference games...even though playoff qualifiers and seedings were done on a conference basis, and even though record in conference games is one of the first tiebreakers!

Is it really a surprise then, that the Heat were the 6-seed in the East and the Celtics and Lakers both had to play in the play-in round?  Credit to the Nuggets for being the same boat and still finishing with the fourth-best record in the league, but having the MVP (who played all 72 games) sure helped.  And they certainly appeared tired against the Suns.

Meanwhile, the NHL gave its teams three-and-a-half months off, not starting the season until mid-January.  That's only a little shorter than the typical NHL offseason.  Part of the reason for that was because they were trying to figure out the logistics and negotiating with the union, but it's also because they valued the quality of the product and knew the product would suffer if the players weren't at 100 percent.

Their reduced schedule was 56 games, which was enough to be representative.  And they played only within their temporarily-realigned divisions.  Not only that, the schedule consisted almost entirely of two-game series (or longer), reducing travel even further.  Was it weird?  Yes!  But I don't think anybody had an issue with it, either.  (I actually really liked the back-to-backs.)  Sure, we would've liked to see the Canadian teams be able to cross the border, but everyone understood why that wasn't possible and accepted this one-year situation.

Even the first two rounds of the playoffs were exclusively within the division, which, again, was done to reduce travel.  It unfortunately led to the two best teams in the league, Vegas and Colorado, playing in the second round, but everyone knew about that possibility from the start and was OK with it.  The whole point of all this was to make it easier on the players.  Which it did.

As a result, the teams that went deep into the playoffs nine months ago have gone just as far again.  The Lightning, Islanders and Golden Knights are clearly still just as good as they were in September, which is a big reason why.  But the NHL also set things up for them to be successful again.  They still had a proper offseason, which allowed them appropriate rest and preparation for this season.  And they've all reaped the rewards.

Had the NHL rushed back and insisted on playing so many games like the NBA did, I'm not sure they would've made it back to the semifinals.  In fact, I think it's likely they would've suffered the same fate as the Lakers, Celtics and Heat.  Likewise, if the NBA had waited, started later and played a shorter schedule, I bet the Lakers, Celtics and Heat wouldn't have exited as early as they did.  They might even still be playing now.

The two leagues took very different approaches for the 2020-21 season.  I'm not saying one was right and the other was wrong.  What I am saying, though, is that those different approaches had a direct impact on what teams are left standing.  The NHL's final four looks very familiar.  The NBA's does not.  And the season setup was a big reason why.