Jillian Fisher: First Round Review: The NHL Playoff Bracket Is the playoff format really that bad? It may not be perfect, but it has provided us with some excellent playoff hockey.

I have the same picks......

Sharks in 6
Stars in 6
Caps in 6
Lightning in 5.

Sharks in 6
Stars in 6
Caps in 6
Lightning in 5.
- ImThatGuy

replace all of those with the opposing team and i agree.

I'm not a fan of the new format , hopefully when they get to 32 teams they switch to more 1st vs 8th ...

I think the format doesn't really matter. There will always be teams who started out horrible but enter the play offs with a huge winning streak as a lower seed. The fact that we see a team like Tampa as a 'weak' team at this point is mostly because of injuries, otherwise they would be cup contenders for sure.

Chicago versus St Louis was a great series but Chicago wasn't as good as last year, and when you would replace them with any other team in the West (with exception of Minnesota) it would have been the same close series.

To conclude: every team deserved where they were at the end of the season, there were some teams who didn't play to their potential in the first round (god, the Red Wings were horrible) but that happens in sports after such a long season.

Sharks in 6
St. Louis in 7 (but I made a preseason bet on the Stars, so please let it be them)

NYI in 6
Penguins in 6

I don't have an issue with the format. It was similar the old way as well, the two division winners would always get the top two spots so to finish second meant you were a three or four facing a six or five seed, which were just as often dangerous first round opponents.

This format by design gives more head to head division matchups which I like.

Blame the long season...

If you took every team's record the last 30 games of the year, you'd probably have gotten better playoff matchups.

At least we no longer have to worry about some team from the Southeast getting the number 3 spot and being ranked above teams that got twenty more points than they did.

I think the Wild Card helps even things out so that this doesn't happen. Also going down to two divisions in each conference means that the most deserving teams get in.

Brackets are for the NCAA though. It seems like the NHL is just trying to borrow anything they can form other sports.

The new format sucks.