Not Simple How Exactly?

During NHL All*Star Weekend, Sidney Crosby said that he'd like to see the NHL change its playoff format (which something I've been advocating ever since they introduced the current dumb format).  He'd like to see them go back to the old way and just do the eight best teams in each conference seeded 1-8.  When asked about it, Gary Bettman said that's "not as simple as it sounds."  How?  Because it seems pretty simple to me!

Apparently, the biggest issue with changing the format, according to Bettman at least, is that moving away from a division-based system and going back to a conference-based system is the uneven number of games.  Teams play opponents in their own division three or four times and opponents from the other division in the conference three times.  However, the issue with that logic is the number of conference games they play is the same.  Everybody plays two games each against the 16 teams in the other conference, so they all play 50 conference games.  So, if anything, doing it conference-based is fairer.

Bettman also mentioned something about having to change the wild cards.  Although, I'm not really sure I understand where he was going with that.  It's currently the top three in each division and two wild cards.  Going to conference-based would just be the six best teams outside of the division winners.  The teams that qualify either wouldn't change at all or maybe one team would be different.  The seeds wouldn't be the same, but that's really the only major difference.  And, frankly, that would be better.

That has always been the biggest issue with the current playoff format.  It's a fixed bracket where the second- and third-place teams in each division face each other in the first round.  Even if they have the third- and fourth-best records in the conference.  Likewise, if the top two teams in the conference play in the same division (which happened often when Pittsburgh and Washington were dominating the league), there's no way they can play each other in the conference finals.  If you do it conference-based, though, there would be no chance of that happening since the best second-place team would be the No. 3 seed.

In the COVID-impacted 2020-21 season, this flaw was on full display.  Teams only played games in temporarily-realigned divisions that season, and the playoffs were division-based, as well.  Colorado and Vegas had the two best records in the league that season.  Unfortunately, they both played in the Western Division, which meant the two best teams in the league met in the second round of the playoffs!

Roughly around that same time two years ago, Bettman and Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly polled the general managers, and evidently two-thirds of them said they were fine with the current format.  Who knows if that's actually true!  Or if it's still true!  Regardless, there are coaches who agree with Crosby.  And there are definitely other players who do.  So it's worth revisting no matter what.  Especially because there's something else they need to revist, too.

When Seattle joined the league last season, they had to make room for the Kraken on everybody's schedule.  In order to keep it at 82 games, though, that meant taking away two division games for Eastern Conference teams, three division games for Central Division teams, and either three or four division games for the rest of the Pacific Division.  Which means they no longer play the same number of games against each division opponent.  They play a total of 26 division games, four against five opponents and only three against the other two.

The obvious problem here is that there's one division team that you only play at home once.  Worse than that, they rotate the two division teams you only play three times.  And this year, that resulted in only three Rangers-Islanders games and only three Flames-Oilers games.  The Rangers and Islanders were done with their three-game season series in December!  Needless to say, the fans and front offices of all four teams were not pleased about that situation.

There's a very easy way to fix the scheduling issue.  Add two games to the schedule.  Going to 84 games would allow them to go back to playing every team in their division four times each (and, more importantly, twice at home each), while also leaving room for those two games against Seattle.  It would also, obviously, give each team an extra home game, which you know the owners would love.

This is something that's already been discussed, so it wouldn't surprise me if the owners vote to expand the schedule by two games (which would also give them more opportunities for outdoor and international games).  Except they can't do that unilaterally.  They would need the NHLPA's approval for it.  Which opens up both issues to negotiation.

If changing the playoff format is important to the players and going to an 84-game schedule is important to the owners, I can easily see the sides coming to an agreement.  The owners get their extra two games, the players get their changes to the playoffs.  And, frankly, I don't see either as a negative.

Based on Crosby's comments, it doesn't look like he's budging on his desire to see the playoffs revert to their old format.  As hard as the regular season is, he'd like to see there be a reward for finishing with the best record.  Especially since the Stanley Cup Playoffs are always such a crapshoot. 

And that reward wouldn't necessarily be in the first round.  It would be in the second round.  Dallas and Winnipeg have the most and second-most points in the West right now, but, because they're in the same division, would play in the second round.  That's what changing the playoff format would avoid.  It wouldn't necessarily just be the 1-seed who benefits, either.  It's very plausible that Toronto and Tampa Bay could finish third and fourth in the East.  Fixing the format would mean that they no longer have to play in the first round, while the 5- and 6-seeds also play each other (which has happened before).

So, I don't get Gary Bettman's logic here at all.  They can't change the playoff format this season.  No one's asking for that, and it would be unreasonable to do so.  But changing it next season wouldn't be that hard at all.  Neither would going to an 84-game schedule.  As long as everybody agrees, doing both together would actually be pretty easy.