The NHL playoff format seems to be a hot topic every year around this time, because it starts to set in how little total points will matter for certain teams.
For example, the Toronto Maple Leafs have the third most points in the Eastern Conference, but they will almost surely place the team with the second most points. While they are third in the Eastern Conference, they’re also third in their division and will play whoever comes second in that division rather than playing who comes 6th place overall.
However, that’s not the playoff format that is being discussed today. Pierre LeBrun wrote a story on a potential change in the playoff format that has emerged to be as a favourite among NHL GMs. That is to increase amount of teams that make the playoffs.
In an article for the Athletic, LeBrun polled all GMs in the league about a scenario in which the league could expand the playoff pool and this was the response:
“As of Tuesday night, 29 of them had responded. And it wasn’t close: 20 yes votes, six no votes, two GMs had mixed responses and one GM abstained.”
We recommend that you read LeBrun’s full piece if you want to fully understand his proposal, but he basically asked if GMs would be open to 10 teams per conference with the a play-in round involving the lower seeds.
It’s really only surprising because this is the first we’ve heard anything about a playoff expansion, but the reasoning actually makes sense.
Of course, playoffs mean more money for the teams, so they’ll always be in favour of that, but considering that the league had 16 teams make the playoffs when there were only 21 teams in the league, it’s probably about time that they consider expanding.
It doesn’t seem like anything will be changed in the near future, but this will definitely start some discussion moving forward as the league continues to expand.
