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The current NHL playoff format has been in place since the 2013-14 season, and although it’s been neat to see some rivalries come out of it, there are some obvious problems.
For starters, the Western Conference has had fewer teams than the Eastern Conference since 13-14, although it’s looking like the addition of a Seattle team will finally put things on a level playing field. Another issue is that some divisions are clearly worse than others, as the Atlantic division this past season was horrendous. That will happen in any league, but it doesn’t make sense that divisions are
more important than they used to be.
Furthermore, the playoff format makes it so that more often than not, some of the best teams are facing off against each other in the first or second round:
You could make the case that Nashville and Winnipeg were the two best teams last season, and they met in the second round. Sure, there are some good rivalries that come with this, but because teams in a wildcard spot can crossover, you end up getting mixed matchups anyway. It just doesn’t make any sense, and I know that not everything in life is fair, but this is an easily fixable problem.
I’m going to assume that Seattle gets an NHL team in the next couple seasons, and I’m thinking that they will go to an 8-division league just like the NFL. I wanted to talk about how I would realign the league and how I would fix the playoffs. Let’s take a look at the new NHL:
Northeast Division:
-Toronto Maple Leafs
-Montreal Canadiens
-Ottawa Senators
-Buffalo Sabres
Southeast Division:
-Tampa Bay Lightning
-Florida Panthers
-Carolina Hurricanes
-Washington Capitals
Atlantic Division:
-Pittsburgh Penguins
-Philadelphia Flyers
-Detroit Red Wings
-Columbus Blue Jackets
Metropolitan Division:
-New York Rangers
-New York Islanders
-New Jersey Devils
-Boston Bruins
Midwest Division:
-Dallas Stars
-Arizona Coyotes
-Colorado Avalanche
-Nashville Predators
Central Division:
-Winnipeg Jets
-Minnesota Wild
-St. Louis Blues
-Chicago Blackhawks
Northwest Division:
-Vancouver Canucks
-Seattle (?)
-Edmonton Oilers
-Calgary Flames
Pacific Division:
-San Jose Sharks
-Anaheim Ducks
-Los Angeles Kings
-Vegas Golden Knights
Here is what it would look like on a map:
Everybody is going to have a few slight changes in their own mockups, and it’s impossible to get it exactly perfect for every team. However, I think this minimizes travel for most teams and keeps most storied rivalries intact. Keeping the Canucks/Oilers/Flames (and Seattle team) together was a no-brainer, and the same goes for the Senators/Leafs/Canadiens, Rangers/Islanders/Devils, and Ducks/Kings/Sharks. The Central and Midwest divisions were the hardest to create because you could come up with a lot of combinations, plus I also had to break up a few rivalries like the Capitals/Penguins and Predators/Blackhawks but overall I think this makes the most sense.
So how would the schedule and playoffs work then?
For starters, each team would play their divisional opponents five teams each, accounting for 15 games total. Then because I like to see each team have a home and home vs. everybody, they will also play out-of-conference opponents twice, accounting for 32 games. Lastly, teams will play others in their conference (but not in their division) three times each, except for one just team who they will play twice. It’s a bit awkward because if they played all of those teams three times, it would add up to 83 games.
I don’t think there’s a perfect number if the NHL wants teams to play against everybody twice (which I like), so I had to settle with just one opponent being faced one fewer time. All in all, this would mean that schedules aren’t as skewed as they could be, although it would be pretty similar to what we have now.
The playoffs are where I would definitely change things.
Here is how I would set things up in each conference:
1. Division winner
2. Division winner
3. Division winner
4. Division winner
5. Wild card 1
6. Wild card 2
7. Wild card 3
8. Wild card 4
Winning your division would still be incentivized, but it wouldn’t harm you
that much if you were in a tough division. Theoretically, you could still finish in a playoff spot if you were 3rd (or even 4th) in your division. Another good thing that would come from this is that it would be more likely that the best teams would face each other in the third and fourth rounds, as opposed to the first or second.
It would be an easy change for the league because it’s essentially what it used to be, except for another division added in there. You wouldn’t have any more forced rivalries but you’d create new ones anyway, plus you end up getting good matchups every year no matter what.
I could really go nuts with this proposal and give a couple radical ideas, although I know they would never happen. I’ll say them anyway though: firstly I’d love to see the top 16 teams make the playoffs regardless of conference. This would make my schedule proposal much different obviously, but it would probably make things more fair. Secondly, a cool idea is to have the number one seed getting to pick their first round opponent amongst the playoff teams, and the second best team getting the next pick, and so forth. Before the 13-14 season, the SHL had a format like this, and it would be amazingly entertaining to see why teams would pick one over the other.
Like I said though, both of those things are too radical so it’s unrealistic. However, my original playoff format makes sense and I’d love to see it happen too. It’s essentially the same as what it was before the last realignment and I bet a lot of fans would welcome the change.
Does my simple format change make the most sense or would you like to see a radical change? Or hell, do you want to keep the status quo or have something entirely different from what I’ve proposed? Let’s hear some ideas.
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
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