Can the NHL please go back to the old Stanley Cup Playoff format?

The Stanley Cup playoff format has been hotly debated for years now, but why was it even changed in the first place when the original format worked fine?

There are very few things in sports better than the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Eight grueling weeks of high-intensity hockey en route to the greatest trophy in sports has made into a spectacle without peer across the sports world. However, like most things in the NHL, the only thing holding it back from perfection is the NHL itself, with its nonsensical seeding format, when they should’ve just left it alone save for a few minor changes a couple years ago.

The current playoff format has the top three teams in each division make the playoffs, along with two wild cards in each conference. The two division winners play the wildcard teams, with the higher seeded division winner playing the lowest seeded wildcard and vice versa. The second and third seeds in each division each playing other in the first round, winners facing the winner of the other series. In the next round, no teams are reseeded like they used to be, leading to key matchups happening way too early in the playoffs.

The Capitals and Penguins have played each other for three straight seasons under this format, even once playing each other as the one and two teams in the entire NHL, with an incredibly realistic chance that they’ll meet for a fourth consecutive time this postseason. No matter how great that rivalry always is, that amount of repetition is unacceptable. There comes a time when it’s just not the same anymore. That’s not even mentioning that the great Nashville Predators and Winnipeg Jets series from last season is about to be beaten into the ground through repetition because you’re most likely going to see it again this year, and several years after that. The whole reason this format was even made was for more rivalries, but what happens when they happen so often that they become stale?

However, the real issue is that the rankings are complete nonsense. The way it’s set up, it totally throws off the balance of first round match-ups, and punishes teams at random based on the success of the other division in their conference. Look at just last postseason, the Boston Bruins had a resurgent season and finished second in the eastern conference by one point. Their reward for this? The 4th ranked Toronto Maple Leafs in round one, and the top ranked Tampa Bay Lightning the next round. A year before that, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets were the second and third ranked teams in the entire NHL, and they played in the first round because they were behind top seeded Washington, leading to the aforementioned 1 vs. 2 matchup in the second round between Washington and Pittsburgh. Meanwhile, in the Atlantic division that same year, the Ottawa Senators and Boston Bruins met in the first round, which would’ve been a 6 vs. 7 matchup under the old format. Why should teams with such great regular seasons be punished so heavily with brutal first round matchups just for the sake of a “rivalry” series?

Gary Bettman has been very clear that he has no intention ever changing the current Stanley Cup playoff format as long as he’s in charge, but even he must realize eventually that this current system is deeply flawed. The only reason it exists like this is for “rivalry” matchups to happen more often, but that’s exactly what’s keeping the NHL stagnant. The Capitals and Penguins rivalry isn’t going anywhere, and they need new rivalries to market to keep it fresh. The most interesting matchups are the ones you don’t see every year, but the fresh and new ones, but it’s also not like those rivalry matchups would never happen in the playoffs without this system. The teams that deserve to play each other, will play each other, and if they just so happen to hate that other team’s guts? Even better. That makes it more authentic, and overall more entertaining.

Now what I propose is not the usual crazy complete overhaul of the playoff system with “play in games” or “1 vs. 16 format”.  It’s simply just to bring back the old system that the NHL abandoned in the 2013-14 season. It’s a compromise between what the fans want, which is a 1 vs. 8 system, and what the NHL wants with the current format. You keep the two divisions in each conference and bring back the modified 1 vs. 8, where the winners of each division get the one and two seeds. The lowest ranked team available after the first round will play the top-ranked team, and so forth. Divisions still matter, and playoff matchups are more authentic.

With this old/new format, last years postseason would’ve looked like this.

Eastern Conference:

1. Tampa Bay vs. 8. New Jersey

2. Washington vs. 7. New Jersey

3. Boston vs. 6 Philadelphia

4. Toronto vs. 5. Pittsburgh

Western Conference:

1. Nashville vs. 8. Colorado

2. Vegas vs. 7. Los Angeles

3. Winnipeg vs. 6. San Jose

4. Minnesota vs. 5. Anaheim

The problem with that original format was that there were three divisions in each conference, so there were plenty of scenarios like in 2012 where we’d see teams like the Florida Panthers finish with 94 points, which would’ve had them finish sixth in the conference in a normal 1 vs. 8 system, get the third seed because they won their division, over a team like the Penguins who finished with 108 points and have home ice advantage over the New Jersey Devils who finished with 102 points. That was broken and needed to change, and it did. The NHL re-aligned to two divisions in each conference in 2013, and they should’ve just left it with that, instead they instated this nonsensical playoff format that made everything more confusing.

Now yes, this proposed format is far from perfect. It’ll probably be a common occurrence that the team with the second most points in a conference gets the third seed instead of the second seed, but even still it’s an improvement from how random the playoff matchups are now, and adds incentive to win your division, making the regular season a bit more exciting. Only in extremely rare scenarios will you see a team undeserving of home ice advantage in the first round, since the seventh seed would have to have more points than a division winner, meaning that there would have to be six teams in the other division better than the other divisions best.

Now you may also be asking, “but why not just make the playoffs the 1 vs. 8 system to ensure that each team gets ranked fairly?”. But the problem with that is that it would require changes beyond just the playoff system, with getting rid of divisions and having to rebalance the schedule on top of plenty other things. The NHL would never do that voluntarily, and if they did want it, they’d have done it already. The best we can hope for under this current regime is a compromise. The NHL gets to keep divisions and divisions winners still get rewarded, while the fans and players get a more fair playoff system that rewards teams properly for regular season success.

All in all, the Stanley Cup playoffs are always going to be an eight-week long spectacle no matter what format it’s in. The on-ice product will never fail to entertain, but the NHL is not doing itself any favors with how they’ve put it together. It’s making great matchups stale, makes no sense with it’s seeding, and is just stubborn not to change when players and fans clearly don’t like it. Whether it’s going back to the previous format or committing to a full 1 vs. 8 system, or some other crazy idea, something has to change here.