Why does the NHL refuse to change the playoff format?
While everyone is excited to see what the upcoming edition of the Stanley Cup Playoffs will hold, some are still irked at some of the potential matchups.
With the NHL’s current divisional postseason format, there is a constructed setup for rivalries to take center stage in the first two rounds. However, that doesn’t take into account how good one division might be compared to its compadre in the same conference.
Case in point, if the playoffs were to start today, the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild would meet in the first round. The two rivals sit second and third in the Central Division and the Western Conference. The other 2-3 battle in the Pacific – the Edmonton Oilers and Vegas Golden Knights – would pit the fifth and seventh-best teams in the West against one another.
Some have called for the league to revert to the 1-8 seeding that it used prior to the realignment in 2013, but the NHL has refused to change its stance.
On Thursday’s edition of Daily Faceoff LIVE, David Pagnotta joined the show to explain why the NHL doesn’t feel like changing its playoff format is necessary.
David Pagnotta: They’ve been very adamant about not changing it. There’s a lot of people that want it to go back to 1-8 rather than how it’s set up divisionally, but the league really likes the fact that you’ve got meaningful games in round one, significantly meaningful games in round one, like Dallas, Minnesota. Everybody’s going to be watching that one, clearly, and keeping tabs on it. From what the league has studied over the years has been that that has led to better ratings throughout the course of the playoffs. Again, you can argue that 1-8 should be better. You should reward those teams that have had better seasons to face “lesser” opponents to a certain degree. But the league is adamant about that, that they like the way things are going.
Originally, this was ‘Let’s build some rivalries. Let’s try to see if we can really scope that out and build something between these markets that they’re going to meet all the time.’ The Oilers and Kings have met every year for the last forever in the playoffs, and it’s led to certain things and a quasi-rivalry, but it hasn’t really developed significantly beyond that. Where everything is at, ratings-wise and sponsor-wise, they’re happy with how things are going. They’re not going to a play-in tournament. They’ve been very adamant as well, even when I’ve spoken with Gary Batman and Bill Daly, saying, ‘Look, once the trade deadline hits. You get those five, six weeks going into the playoffs. That’s your play-in tournament.’ How many meaningful games are we keeping tabs on right now to see who’s getting points and who’s not and all that stuff? That’s the league’s argument that you don’t need to expand the playoff format either, because this play-in tournament, well, that’s our six-week rush into postseason.
You can watch the full segment and entire episode here…