Playoff Format Screwing Good Teams

RSN Diaspora

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Jul 29, 2005
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The Bruins have gotten screwed with the seedings this season. They finished 2nd in points in the East and they faced the team that tied for 3rd and now the team that finished 1st.

Brutal. Still, win the games.
This was from the Tampa discussion thread, but I think this series combined with the fact that Jets and Preds are playing each other in the second round as well underscores the failings of the division-based playoff format. Yes, that's how it was for most of the NHL's existence, but I think this year's seedings really justify examining a return to conference-based seeding.
 

Greg29fan

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I must have missed this thread last year when the Penguins had to play the 108 point Blue Jackets and the 118 point Capitals just to make the conference finals.

Otherwise I agree this format does suck and I'd like to see it go away.
 

ajml

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Jul 22, 2005
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The Bruins defenitiely got screwed this year and have the hardest possible path to the cup. From a fan/league perspective though you ended up with 4 great series and the conference finals will be good matchups as well regardless of who wins.
 

TFP

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I must have missed this thread last year when the Penguins had to play the 108 point Blue Jackets and the 118 point Capitals just to make the conference finals.

Otherwise I agree this format does suck and I'd like to see it go away.
Are you missing the "Start Thread" button in your permissions?

The persecution complex of Penguins fans across the internet despite being back to back champions is unbelievable.
 

Greg29fan

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I don't feel persecuted; it's just the Bruins aren't the first team to "get screwed" by the playoff format.

Also I imagine had I started said thread last year, this would have been the reaction.

Mario should’ve called it a garage league again!
 

RSN Diaspora

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I don't feel persecuted; it's just the Bruins aren't the first team to "get screwed" by the playoff format.
Congrats on knocking down that strawman: I don't remember arguing that the Bruins were uniquely penalized. In fact, the thread title is about good teams in general, not one in specific. The two best teams in each conference should not, IMO, be playing each other in the second round.
 
Mar 1, 2009
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It’s a loss for fairness but it is a win for entertainment value. I think the good outweighs the bad on this and I’d prefer to see them go the other way and eliminate the WC spots and go back to its earlier format where 4 from each division qualify and the regular season schedule is weighted heavily toward divisional matchups. Teams that play each other often are going to hate each other, and watching teams that hate each other play in a series is awesome. Sure, someone is going to be left with the short end of the stick. But the byproduct of that is neutral fans getting to see a marquee matchup between 2 top 6 teams in the first round.
 

thehitcat

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I heard a decent argument yesterday that the "better" teams were actually in the Metro this year because the Atlantic teams all got to fatten up on Montreal (giggle), Ottawa and Buffalo while the Metro had no true easy outs.

While I'm not here to debate the merits of who is better I do think that perhaps using point totals in an unbalanced schedule can sometimes lead us astray as to who the best teams are in each league.
 

NYCSox

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I must have missed this thread last year when the Penguins had to play the 108 point Blue Jackets and the 118 point Capitals just to make the conference finals.

Otherwise I agree this format does suck and I'd like to see it go away.
Maybe it was discussed on Sons of Gary Rissling?
 

veritas

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If the Bruins could have beaten shitty Ottawa last year they would have had a cakewalk to the ECF. I think it's a stupid system but it seems to have evened out over the past few years.
 

wiffleballhero

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It is an annoying problem because, unlike some problems in the world, this one is easy to fix and obvious to anyone who thinks about it for a few minutes.

Yes, if the Bruins were playing a couple 90 point teams here I would not think about it at all this year ("tough luck suckers" would be my attitude). But it should come as hardly a shock that a forum about the Bruins hits this in the Spring of 2018.

There are two issues here also:
1. The NHL does not play enough of an unbalanced schedule to make the divisions really meaningful. It seems more like a way to always have an assessment problem than a real emphasis on divisions.

2. There is no reason to have wild cards at all, even if you just love divisions.

The NHL should either:

1. Play a more severely unbalanced schedule and commit to "rivalries" and then just let the top four from each division go to the playoffs.

or
2. Scrap the whole division thing altogether and just let the top eight in the conference into the playoffs.

(If you are into the whole division thing, in the playoffs, you could either keep it all in the division or have #1 play #4 from the other division and re-bracket after each round.)
 

lexrageorge

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I don't see the current format as being a big problem. It's not perfect, but I do recall the old days of when the playoffs were strictly divisional based, and playing Buffalo and Montreal every year got tiresome.

Each of the remaining 8 teams tallied 100 or more points in the standings. None of them would be, or should be, considered 2nd round push-overs. A different system would have the Bruins playing the Capitals, against whom the B's collected 1 point in 3 games.
 

McDrew

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Wow, this got pissy quick.

You know why the NHL switched to the "divisional" format? Because somewhere between 50-100% of the first 2 rounds is usually divisional rivalries. Those games bring MORE casual interest into a game because of the familiarity between the two teams.

Also, if two teams end up beating up the rest of their division for extra points, who's to say that they're better than other teams that played in a tougher division. The schedules between division foes are very normalized, and I'll take a comparison between points on Atlantic teams to be more relevant than points between atlantic and metro.
 

Dan Murfman

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I don't see the current format as being a big problem. It's not perfect, but I do recall the old days of when the playoffs were strictly divisional based, and playing Buffalo and Montreal every year got tiresome.
.
Working across from the Hartford Civic Center I liked the two years in a row they played the Whalers.
 

timlinin8th

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1. Play a more severely unbalanced schedule and commit to "rivalries" and then just let the top four from each division go to the playoffs.
God no. I absolutely loathe the unbalanced schedule baseball uses... familiarity breeds boredom due to overexposure. I like the regular season format the way it is.

Give the division winners 1&2, and seed the rest. There’s never gonna be a “perfect” system but at least this way the 82 game season meant something more than “hey we qualified over the other half of the division”.
 

RetractableRoof

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God no. I absolutely loathe the unbalanced schedule baseball uses... familiarity breeds boredom due to overexposure. I like the regular season format the way it is.

Give the division winners 1&2, and seed the rest. There’s never gonna be a “perfect” system but at least this way the 82 game season meant something more than “hey we qualified over the other half of the division”.
This x 1000.

Unbalanced schedules are inherently unfair when deciding wildcard type entry (in any sport).

Nothing destroys appointment viewing faster than overexposure. I think the diminished rivalry w/ NY was as much overexposure as any other reason.
 

McDrew

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19 games a season will do that. 4-5 a season, with the chance for 7 that really matter is a much better way to do that.

Here's my even more radical proposal.

Regular season (Assuming 32 teams, cause this would never happen before then)
1 Home/ 1 Away with every other non-divisional team. (24*2=48)
All other games divisional (82 - 48 = 34, 34 / 7 = ~5 each)

Playoffs
Divisional Playoffs: Top 4 from each division seeded 1-4. 3 Guaranteed intra-divisional series. The teams will change, but the closeness will not.
Stanley Cup Playoffs: 4 Division champs randomly seeded 1-4.
 

TheYaz67

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Well, very interesting start to the second round - 3 of the 4 road teams stole game one and thus home ice advantage, and the 4th team who did not (San Jose) won game 2 of their series on the road - amusingly the exact same thing happened last year (3 of 4 road teams winning game 1) and 2 of those 3 teams (Pitt and Nashville) went on to win their series.

Evenly matched teams in this round, so it seems whomever can defend home ice the best will probably prevail in theses series - B's had only 8 outright regulation time losses in 41 home games, which is nice....
 

RSN Diaspora

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It’s an interesting point about the attractiveness to fans. If the Bruins are playing, I’m watching every game I can. If they’re not, I’m not making much of an effort to watch, rendering the exercise lost on me. I might be an outlier though.

Still, it seems that playoff seeding should (even imperfectly) most reward the best performing teams in the regular season, and the current set up seems less likely to do that than the conference-based format.