rick@ucla-cs.UUCP (04/17/85)
<<< 2 minutes for high sticking >>>
I think it is clear that the NHL playoffs are not very good. 80 games to
eliminate 5 teams makes the regular season meaningless. There is not enough
incentive to work hard to finish first when all you are guaranteed is an
extra game in the first round of the playoffs. Here are some suggestions
I've heard recently to improve the playoffs:
1) give the first place overall team an extra draft pick at the end of
the first round.
2) reduce the number of teams to 12, with the divisional winners getting
a first round bye. Trouble with this is that the teams getting a bye
lose money by not playing games.
3) go back to pitting teams by overall standing. 1 plays 16, 2 plays 15,
etc. Trouble with this is that the teams play an unbalanced schedule
and divisional play would skew things.
4) take the top three teams from each division, and the next 4 overall
teams.
5) emphasize conference play rather than divisional, similar to the NBA.
And here is my suggestion. Emphasize conference play during the regular
season by playing 3 games against teams outside your conference, 4 (5?)
games against teams from your conference but in the other division, and
the rest of your games against teams in your division. 14 teams make the
playoffs, the best seven from each conference. The conference winners get
a bye in the first round (that's two teams). The other 6 teams in each
conference are paired by final points, 1 vs 6, 2 vs 5, etc. The pairings
for the rest of the conference playoffs are similar (best vs worst from
regular season). Then the conference champions play for the Stanley Cup.
Who would get the home ice advantage in the finals? Well, the current
system of the conference with the best record against the other is kind
of stupid. But with an unbalanced schedule you can't go by overall points.
I would go by the head-to-head record of the two teams involved. Ties
broken by total regular season points. Further ties by conference vs
conference play. With this setup the playoffs this year would have been:
Wales Campbell
===== ========
Philadelphia - bye Edmonton - bye
Washington - Boston Winnipeg - Detroit
Montreal - Islanders Calgary - Los Angeles
Quebec - Buffalo St. Louis - Chicago
--
Rick Gillespie
rick@ucla-cs
...!{cepu|ihnp4|sdcrdcf|ucbvax}!ucla-cs!rick
"She turned me into a newt! . . . I got better."lor@ucla-cs.UUCP (04/21/85)
>I think it is clear that the NHL playoffs are not very good. 80 games to >eliminate 5 teams makes the regular season meaningless. There is not enough >incentive to work hard to finish first when all you are guaranteed is an >extra game in the first round of the playoffs. This is another suggestion of playoff format. The goal is to make the regular season more meaningful, and also give the division winners better chance to advance: Keep the current format; four teams in each division qualify for the playoffs. The #2 team plays the #3 team as it is. The #1 team also plays the #4 team, but give the #1 team an advantage bigger than just one extra home game. Let the #1 team win the first game by default. In other words, this series is just a four-game series. The #1 team needs only two victories to advance, while the #4 team needs three. The home ice distribution is: #1, #4, #4, #1. ** This is not fair. ** No, it isn't. But if the division champ is 40+ points better than the #4 team (Flyers - Rangers), doesn't it deserve an unfair advantage going into the playoffs? The #1 team is usually more than 10 points ahead of the 4th team. In the current system, the #1 team just get an extra home game, which isn't fair enough. In the past 2 years, two the #4 teams easily swept the division winners in the first round (Montreal - Boston in 1984, Minnesota - St. Louis in 1985), which hurt the gate and demean the regular season. Montreal and Minnesota had awful regular seasons but lucked out in the playoffs. If the top seeded team is one game ahead from the beginning, these series might have different outcomes. ** How does it make the regular season more interesting? ** The #2 team will fight for #1 to get the default win; the #3 team will fight for #2 to get the home ice advantage, as usual; the #4 team will fight for #3 to avoid the default lost. ** The owners will object because they get one game less revenue. ** In that case, make it a six-game series, with the #1 team needs 3 wins while the #4 team needs 4. Of course, the players will oppose because they have to play one more game. Anyway, either a 4-game or 6-game series is fine. Both provides the unfair advantage. ** This idea is too outrageous, it has no precedence. ** Yes, it has. Remember the format in the Olympics: two teams from each preliminary group qualify, with the first round result between the two teams (from the same group) carried into the medal round. In our case, we just carry a little bit of the regular season outcome into the playoffs. -- Eddy Lor ...!ucbvax!ucla-cs!lor lor@ucla-locus.arpa