NHL playoff format not perfect, but the best way to go

It seems like every sport is trying to find that perfect playoff formula to make every series have real meaning to it. Meaning brings interest, starts conversations and creates the ‘Hey, did you see this?’ moments like those last-second touchdowns and overtime goals that cannot help but go viral on social media.

In reality, there is no such thing as a perfect format. There is no system that will guarantee both balanced and interesting games. But despite its shortcomings, the NHL playoff format of the last four seasons comes the closest to that elusive perfection.

The purpose of a playoff is to see the best teams in the league duke it out, which means there will always be first-round matchups that could very well have happened in the final, or some games that probably never needed to happen in the first place.

The NBA is struggling with that issue this year, with many games turning into one-sided affairs before the end of the third quarter. While this is less of a seeding issue and more of a league parity one, it still begs the question: Does seeding actually matter?

Four years ago, in the wake of realignment, the NHL decided to take on this question by mixing up its seeding formula with a system meant to create more divisional rivalries. It returned to the division-based format it used from 1982 to 1993, except top-seeded teams might face a non-divisional conference opponent in the first round, whereas it used to be a straight 1-versus-4 and 2-versus-3 bracket.

The current NHL playoff format is overly complicated on paper, but could be justified in theory. It allows rivalries to grow, while adding a wild-card team throws a splash of variation to keep it from always being the same four teams. It has been an interesting take on the conference-based playoffs format and has built drama, as good teams meet year after year.

However, there is one fatal flaw. By trying to create artificial drama, it accidentally killed all meaning of a regular-season conference championship.

Since starting this new system, the champion of the weaker conference has been forced to face a wild-card team that is stronger than the match-up of their divisional rivals. This encourages teams in the stronger conference or division to play down for the wild card instead of automatically facing their divisional rivals in the first round.

The Columbus Blue Jackets were a perfect example of the system’s failures this season. They earned 108 points, the fourth-best total in the league, but took third place in the stronger Metropolitan Division. In turn, they were forced to meet the second-place Pittsburgh Penguins, who earned 111 points for second in the Eastern Conference and the league overall, in the opening round.

In contrast, the Rangers got a much friendlier playoff bracket by earning 102 points and the first wild card, crossing them over to the Atlantic Division. Even though they failed to make it out of the weaker division, one could argue that they still had a better draw than the Blue Jackets. After all, they ousted the Montreal Canadiens (103 regular-season points) in the first round.

This problem alone justifies a change to the system. A team should not be punished for winning its regular-season division race or rewarded for a wild-card berth.

However, this is not to say that this conference playoff system is completely broken, either. Teams meeting each other in the playoffs multiple years in a row has built some level of a rivalry between in-division teams, like what you saw from Tampa Bay and Detroit in 2015 and 2016.

In 2015, that series was an entertaining, but fairly standard seven-game series. When the Lightning and Red Wings met in 2016, however, they took an uncharacteristic amount of fighting and game-misconduct penalties. This history developed after only two playoffs turned a fairly mundane series into the talk of the first round.

If the NHL really wanted to up the drama, it could go full reality-TV mode and let the conference champions pick their first round match-ups. While this would be as far from tradition as possible, people would tune in to that selection show.

Ultimately, despite the gripes with the current playoff format, it should not be changed back to the 1-through-8 seeding bracket. Some tweaks are needed, like letting the conference champion play the weakest team in their bracket instead of wild card, but that change could be made without losing the idea of the divisional system. This system has been good at building drama that stretches from the regular season into the postseason.

Is it perfect? No. But it has been a lot of fun.