Over the weekend, I saw an article about the upcoming Stanley Cup Playoffs. Specifically, it was an article saying it's time to expand the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The argument being made was that the NFL, NBA and MLB playoffs have all been expanded recently, while the NHL has stuck with 16 for the Stanley Cup Playoffs (with the exception of the 24-team Edmonton and Toronto bubbles in 2020).
While the format has changed over the years, the Stanley Cup Playoffs have been a 16-team tournament since the 1979-80 season. The NHL had 21 teams then, meaning 76.2 percent of the league made the playoffs! The league has added 11 teams since then while maintaining the 16-team playoffs, meaning that half the league makes the playoffs and the other half doesn't. (Fifty percent, by the way, is still the second-highest percentage of playoff teams in any of the four major sports.)
It's worth noting here, however, that the NHL gave us some of the weakest playoff teams in sports history during that span! It was division-based from 1981-82 until 1992-93 and four of the five (or six in the Patrick) teams made the playoffs. So, all you had to do was not finish last and you made the playoffs! Seriously, what's the point of the regular season then?
The argument, I think, is based on the fact that the NHL has maintained the same field size for 40 years despite the league increasing in size by one-third. And the 24-team COVID-bubble 2020 playoffs were the evidence that expanding the field size wouldn't dilute the quality. In fact, there are so many good teams in the NHL that some feel the Stanley Cup Playoffs might actually be better with 24 teams, not worse!
However, the fact that some good teams don't make the playoffs isn't in and of itself proof that the playoffs need to be expanded. Quite the opposite actually. The fact that there are plenty of good teams left out means the 16 that make it have to be pretty damn good themselves!
Let's not forget this point, either. The Stanley Cup is already the toughest trophy in all of sports to win. You have to win four best-of-seven series over two months to have your name engraved on the Cup. So why make it harder by requiring teams to play (and win) more games. Games with playoff intensity at that!
In the Stanley Cup Playoffs, an 8-seed in their conference is just as likely to make a run as the President's Trophy winner. And, I'm sure if the field were expanded, there are 9- or 10-seeds who could realistically make that same argument. (In 2020, both 12-seeds, Montreal and Chicago, beat the 5-seeds, Pittsburgh and Edmonton, in the qualifying round.) Which probably helps make the case for making the 24-team field permanent.
I'm sure ESPN and TNT, the NHL's TV partners, wouldn't be opposed to more playoff game inventory, either. Using 2020 as the template, going from 16 to 24 playoff teams and adding a best-of-five first round (the first round would be renamed the "second round" and the second round would be renamed the "conference semifinals") would add anywhere between 24-32 games to the playoff schedule. It would also increase the number of games required to win the Cup from 16 to 19 for 16 of the 24 teams.
That, I think, is my biggest issue with the idea of any Stanley Cup Playoff expansion. The top four teams in each conference would get the first-round bye and still only need 16 wins, and I'm sure the argument would be made that it puts getting one of those top four seeds at even more of a premium since that's quite an advantage. In theory, at least.
Who knows? Maybe it would be an advantage. However, getting a top-four seed would also mean sitting around for a week and a half while the bottom eight seeds play in the first round. So, it would also create the very realistic possibility of the top four teams getting rusty while their opponents are finding their groove, thus making the chances of a second-round upset that much greater.
One of the reasons the NBA play-in tournament works is because it's a series of single games. It's over in three days. But you can't do a single game for hockey. At the minimum, it would need to be a best-of-three series. Ideally, it would be a best-of-five (which is what it was in the 2020 bubble...however, there was no travel involved then). So that's at least a week or, more likely, 10 days of playoffs before the top teams play their first game! That's a long time to wait!
Of course, you know the owners would probably be on board. Expanded playoffs mean more teams get in, which means those teams get more home games. And more playoff games also means more money. They've also seen that there are enough good teams that it wouldn't dilute the product, so the quality wouldn't suffer.
Regardless, I think expanding the Stanley Cup Playoffs would be a mistake. Simply put, there's no reason to. The eight playoff spots in the East have already been clinched (and were all pretty much locked in months ago). The 12th-place team in the East (who would become a playoff team) is Detroit, which has 72 points. In the West, it's a little better, but not much. San Jose is 12th in conference with 76 points. Sorry, but that's not adding quality. That's adding for the sake of adding.
And that would create a different problem. Watering down the regular season. The battle for the final playoff berths is intense...precisely because the Stanley Cup Playoffs are so exclusive. If the NHL were to award mediocre teams like the Red Wings and Sharks with playoff spots, however, those battles would be gone. Instead of good teams fighting to get in, you'd have mediocre teams hoping to be the least bad, just so they can call themselves a "playoff" team.
What I'd like to see instead, and I've made this point numerous times before so it shouldn't come as a surprise to anybody, is ditching the current division-based system and go back to the conference-based system. The two division winners are 1 & 2. The remaining six spots go to the next six teams, ranked by total points, not division. That 2 vs. 3 series in each division really drives me crazy (especially since Toronto and Tampa Bay could be three and four overall in the East, yet one will be guaranteed to be eliminated in the first round).
So, yes, I do agree that, regarding the Stanley Cup Playoffs, change wouldn't necessarily be a bad thing. Expanding the field isn't the answer, though. Switching back to a conference-based format is.
No comments:
Post a Comment