Follow @james_tanner123 Nothing can ever be perfect. I guess it's best to start there.
No matter what system of standings you use, there will be problems and little glitches that occur that make things undesirable for whatever reason. It is inevitable that no matter what changes the NHL makes to the way they track their standings and seed their teams for the Playoffs, that there will be problems.
The NHL wants divisional rivalries, they don't want ties, they want to cut back on travel. In the old system, one team could miss the Playoffs playing better competition while someone from the old South-East Division would make the Playoffs with less points.
But acknowledging that, I do think that there has to be a better way than how they currently do them.
In my mind, the main problem is that having some games worth different amounts of points in the standings is indefensibly stupid and unfair. Clearly the NHL cares more about the so called integrity of their record book than they do about common sense and logic.
The secondary problem is that the Playoff match-ups under the Wild Card system often seem to be unlikely to decide who is the best team in the NHL.
Which brings us to a little side-bar of things we must establish to continue:
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1) Are the Playoffs just a fun tournament where we celebrate a team's ability to run a gauntlet of randomness and luck in a battle of attrition, or do we actually want them to be the determining factor in deciding who is the best team?
Should the Playoffs be Survivor or Jeorpardy?
2) Is it better to win in regulation than in overtime/shootout, or is a win a win?
I think wins in shootouts are basically random and I haven't ever seen anything to disprove this or heard anyone make an argument that satisfies me regarding it.
The best goalies of the shootout generation get scored on roughly 20-30% of the time, vs about 8-10% of the time in a real game. The marginal difference between players at the professional level means that any edge a player has vs. the competition in real life is given away when anyone in the league can score 30% of the time.
For instance, professional dart players can hit the bulls-eye at will, but make it bigger so that anyone can hit it, and there is no way for pros to get better since there is no better way to make points. All of a sudden, everyone is a pro and winning is much more random.
I declare the shootout almost totally random. Even the NHL agrees since they still give you a point for getting there.
But what about O.T? We assume that it's basically the same as regular hockey, but is it? For five minutes you can skate just the top half of your team with tons more open ice. It's really nothing like real hockey and if depth is what makes your team special, you're main advantage is just randomly neutralized.
I submit that 4v4 OT is basically just as crazy and random and gimmicky as the shoot-out.
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So, I submit the following: regulation wins are more impressive than either overtime or shootout wins and that the point of the Stanley Cup Playoffs should be to reward the best teams.
Look at this years Playoffs and note the following problems:
1) The L.A Kings missed the Playoffs but they won 37 regulation games, and only three teams in the whole NHL had more. Under a 3-2-1 scoring system (three points for a reg. win, split the points in O.T) or the old system with ties, they are in the Playoffs.
Because they did lose so many games in O.T/Shootout, they are punished with a low seed, but due to their ability to win in actual hockey situations where their depth is not diminished, they make the Playoffs. Since they have one of the best rosters in the league and have won two of the last three Cups, this is a pretty significant way for a team to be screwed and it shouldn't be allowed to happen. I think it underscores just how bad the NHL's seeding/standings currently are.
2) The current Western Conference seeding is atrocious. There is not even the hint of fairness in the way things have gone down.
Chicago has to play Nashville. This is idiotic. The NHL is not only eliminating one of their best teams in the first round, but they are ensuring that whichever team advances is at a huge disadvantage going forward due to the toughness of the match-up. This is the main problem of the current seeding.
Also, the Wild and the Blues play each other, which is another very tough series with all the same problems as the aforementioned Nashville/Chicago series. The standings are done in such a way that the NHL has the two teams in the West with the most regulation wins playing each other in the first round.
But,
the Ducks get to play the Jets, and then they get to play the winner of the Calgary/Vancouver series. No offense to any of those teams, but in a league where the differences between the top teams is so marginal, that is a massive advantage for the Ducks.
The Ducks, the team that won three less games in regulation than the Wild, have a path to the Final that is so easy it makes the regular season and its 82 game length almost meaningless.
Look, the Playoffs are fun no matter what, but I just think that if the goal of them is to identify and reward the best team, then changes need to be made to make that more likely. As it is, Nashville could beat the Blackhawks in game 7 in overtime and then damn well near kill themselves trying to get by the Wild, while the Ducks could cruise to the Conference Final in eight games against teams that are not even on the same level.
Any team can win at any time, that's what makes sports special. But it's only special if it doesn't happen all the time. The best teams need to win in order to make upsets mean something.
The solution is as obvious as it is unlikely to happen:
Make every game worth the same amount of points so that regulation winners are rewarded justly, and then seed teams for the Playoffs in a 1-16 fashion.
But it won't happen:
-The NHL has yet to realize that geographical rivalries are obsolete in the world of the internet where we are all neighbors.
-They are in love with their record book (as if shoot-outs didn't already ruin it, or as if eras are comparable anyways).
- They will site travel as a reason not to seed 1-16, even though a series of 2-3-2 requires only two travel days and planes are so comfortable and accommodations so nice that it barely matters if you have to go an extra few hours.
Thanks for reading.