A Modest Proposal

Zupcic Fan

loves 8 inch long meat
SoSH Member
Oct 27, 2001
2,708
Norwalk, Connecticut
First, let me state that I'm no longer a hockey fan. I was a pretty big Rangers fan in the late 60's, early 70's, when Bobby Orr beat my team in every important game. The main reason I stopped being a fan is that , to me at least, the regular season lost all meaning. They play a whole year and the only advantage to finishing high up is that you get home ice advantage, and then in the playoffs the visiting team wins a significant number of game---so all that matters is finishing in the top 8. So why spend time and money on any regular season game? To someone like me, I just lost interest.

I have a proposal to fix that.

In the playoffs in the 1-8, 2-7, 3-6 but not in the 4-5 series, the lower seeded team would have to win 5 of the 7 games to advance. After round one, all games of Course go back to best 4 of 7.

Advantages:
1. Teams would fight like hell to finish 1,2,3, and to avoid finishing 6,7,8
2. The fight to finish 3 rather than 4, or 5 rather than 6 would be very meaningful
3. If a lower team ever came close to achieving 5 wins it would be very exciting.
4. The regular season games and the standings would become very meaningful for all those reasons
Disadvantages
1. Some playoff games would end very quickly in the first round
2. Major change: some long time hockey fans would hate it

So this year, for example,, the Bruins would have really earned something for their terrific season, not just home ice advantage, which is pretty meaningless. The whole purpose of my proposal is to make the regular season count for something, like it clearly does in both baseball and football.
 

RG33

Certain Class of Poster
SoSH Member
Nov 28, 2005
7,199
CA
I feel like Bill Polian would suggest this if he was a hockey fan.
 

Salem's Lot

Andy Moog! Andy God Damn Moog!
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
14,461
Gallows Hill
The regular season in the NHL & NBA are basically played for the revenue. Guys could not play the way they play in the playoffs for 7 months, there would be no one left healthy by the end. Making radical changes to the playoff format wouldn’t change any of that. Although I could be talked into the same play in game format that the NBA has for the wildcard teams, simply because those games would be awesome. But it would defeat the OP’s point because the winner of those games would come in with more momentum.
 

Eddie Jurak

canderson-lite
Lifetime Member
SoSH Member
Dec 12, 2002
44,475
Melrose, MA
Here's my playoff suggestion: instead of solely standings-based seeding, let the top seeded team choose its opponent, then the #2 seed, then the #3.
 

BlackJack

Member
SoSH Member
Oct 11, 2007
3,456
The loss sucked. Big time and it ranks right up there with other all time gut wrenching losses. But one of the truly great things about playoff hockey is that practically any team can win the cup in any given year. Stacking the deck in favor of teams that had more regular season success takes away from that. Big no from me on changing the playoff format.
 

Youkilis vs Wild

New Member
Mar 30, 2009
352
Boston, MA
The regular season in the NHL & NBA are basically played for the revenue. Guys could not play the way they play in the playoffs for 7 months, there would be no one left healthy by the end. Making radical changes to the playoff format wouldn’t change any of that. Although I could be talked into the same play in game format that the NBA has for the wildcard teams, simply because those games would be awesome. But it would defeat the OP’s point because the winner of those games would come in with more momentum.
This year notwithstanding, I do feel like the NBA regular season at least cements true contenders near the top of the standings and serves as something relatively predictive for the playoffs. The NHL regular season seems to be about just determining who's in the playoffs before commencing a crapshoot.
 

MiracleOfO2704

not AWOL
SoSH Member
Jul 12, 2005
9,528
The Island
This year notwithstanding, I do feel like the NBA regular season at least cements true contenders near the top of the standings and serves as something relatively predictive for the playoffs. The NHL regular season seems to be about just determining who's in the playoffs before commencing a crapshoot.
I think we've talked about this, but it's likely down to the sheer number of events in each game. Every time the puck is propelled from a stick, it's an event, and there are TONS of them in a 60 minute game. It's why the better models that are publicly available are careful to couch predictions the way they do.
 

Ale Xander

Hamilton
SoSH Member
Oct 31, 2013
72,428
Even with the crapshoot, the current parity is better than what you had in '76-88 when only 3 franchises won a cup.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
In the NBA, there is the reality that the team with the best player on the floor has a huge advantage, given that there are only 5 players per side and that the best players play over 80% of the game (excluding blowout wins or losses). In the NFL, the QB gets the ball in his hands nearly 100% of the time, so it's hard to overcome a Patrick Mahomes.

NHL is going playoffs are always going to have a huge amount of randomness associated with them. It's great when you're a fan of the underdog or lower seeded team and your team pulls off the upset; not so much when you're a fan of the overwhelming favorite. And even the 8th seeded team in a conference is usually a pretty decent team, which is not always the case in the NBA or NFL.

Personally, I do wish the regular season counted for more than just home ice advantage. I sometimes wish the top teams had one less playoff series to win, but there's no way to do that without either reducing the number of playoff teams (never going to happen), or adding a playin with a bye for the top teams, which requires adding qualifying teams.
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,271
AZ
The NBA and to a lesser extent the NHL have pulled off a hell of a magic trick getting people to still care about the regular season. MLB too, to some extent. And they even seem to be able to continue yearly ticket price increases. I went to zero regular season NBA games this year. Thought about going several times, but could not justify the cost for the product.

It is amazing to me that they keep finding tricks and ways to keep it going, and every year I continue to believe it is about to hit critical mass. But it doesn’t. Nobody seems to care.

Did you know that exactly one of seeds 1-8 is left among the 8 NBA teams still in the playoffs? Maybe the Warriors and Kraken will win championships and people will finally care. I doubt it.
 

lexrageorge

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 31, 2007
18,096
The NBA and to a lesser extent the NHL have pulled off a hell of a magic trick getting people to still care about the regular season. MLB too, to some extent. And they even seem to be able to continue yearly ticket price increases. I went to zero regular season NBA games this year. Thought about going several times, but could not justify the cost for the product.

It is amazing to me that they keep finding tricks and ways to keep it going, and every year I continue to believe it is about to hit critical mass. But it doesn’t. Nobody seems to care.

Did you know that exactly one of seeds 1-8 is left among the 8 NBA teams still in the playoffs? Maybe the Warriors and Kraken will win championships and people will finally care. I doubt it.
The bolded is not correct if I'm understanding you properly:

Celtics (2)
76'ers (3)
Nuggets (4)
Knicks (8)
 

DennyDoyle'sBoil

Found no thrill on Blueberry Hill
SoSH Member
Sep 9, 2008
42,271
AZ
The bolded is not correct if I'm understanding you properly:

Celtics (2)
76'ers (3)
Nuggets (4)
Knicks (8)
No, each of seeds 1-8 is represented exactly once.

1- Nuggets
2-Celtics
3-76ers
4-Suns
5-Knicks
6-Warriors
7-Lakers
8-Heat
 

Toe Nash

Member
SoSH Member
Jul 28, 2005
5,590
02130
Fans and the league could just decide to care more about the President's trophy (would be helpful if the schedule were balanced). In European soccer winning the league is important to everyone as is winning the various playoffs. In the US in every sport we only care about the playoffs. It's sort of weird but I don't know how you change that on a macro level. Maybe the league can do something but people would probably make fun of it because playoffs or nothing is pretty entrenched among fans.

It would also be nice if there was something to do about the incredible importance and unpredictability of goalies in a short series. The difference between a .930 goalie and a .910 goalie (or a .930 goalie playing like a .910) will make or break a team in the playoffs but is really not noticeable to most people nor predictable in any way from playoffs-to-playoffs unless you have a once-in-a-generation guy like Hasek. As Bruins fans know in both directions.

But, again, no good way to fix that without messing up the game in other ways. I would say just enjoy the chaos.
 

luckiestman

Son of the Harpy
SoSH Member
Jul 15, 2005
32,617
The loss sucked. Big time and it ranks right up there with other all time gut wrenching losses. But one of the truly great things about playoff hockey is that practically any team can win the cup in any given year.
To me, that’s not great. It means the regular season is a waste of time. The playoffs are fun the way March Madness is fun but I don’t think it’s good for the sport overall.
 

SoxinSeattle

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 6, 2003
2,368
Here
There is a reason that the premier soccer leagues don't have playoffs. Any sport with a goal and a goalie has a randomness that other sports don't have. With no playoffs the regular season means everything and IMO truly shows the best team that season. That said playoffs are fucking awesome and I don't want them to go anywhere.
 

NoXInNixon

Member
SoSH Member
Mar 24, 2008
5,296
To me, that’s not great. It means the regular season is a waste of time. The playoffs are fun the way March Madness is fun but I don’t think it’s good for the sport overall.
I agree. It's why you never see me posting here. Hockey is such a beautiful sport to watch, but I just can't get myself emotionally invested in a sport where the playoffs feel like a total crapshoot. All-time great regular season teams shouldn't lose in the first round of the playoffs, ever. But it seems to happen all the time in the NHL.
 

Mueller's Twin Grannies

critical thinker
SoSH Member
Dec 19, 2009
9,386
The only real change that might not get people to start sharpening their pitchforks is for the NHL to do something similar to what the other three Big Four leagues do: give the top seed in each conference a bonus for achieving the best record, and not just some silly little trophy for the one team that did better than all the others. Whether that's adding one more playoff team to each conference and having a best of three wild card round between the bottom two to see who actually gets to be the 8th seed while the 1 seed rests up, or you give the top two teams in reach conference an automatic BYE to the second round like MLB and the NFL do.

As others have stated, there is no reason to attain the best record since home ice is not really an advantage anymore (maybe it is in other cities) and half the teams in each conference get home ice in the first round no matter what. It's silly. If a team has the best record at the end of the regular season, they should get a longer break to rest guys up. Parity is great, but it feels sometimes like the NHL has too much of it. At some point, the team that blows the rest of the league out needs to get more out of it than just the "worst" playoff team and up to four games at home in the first round, especially since teams get hot at the end of the year and make the records a bit misleading.

So, yeah, give the two best or the top two best in each conference something more meaningful than home ice. They've added two teams to the league in the last 5 years but haven't changed the playoff format at all, so I think having 9 teams make it in each conference is a pretty good and simple fix that adds more revenue and increases interest. I mean, even the NHL has to see at this point that the President's Trophy is becoming an undesirable goal: when winning more than everyone else becomes nothing special and actually a detriment to playoff hopes, it's time for a change, because no other league has that issue.