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Get rid of wildcard spot

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NHL Dude 120

NHL Dude 120

Registered User
Jun 18, 2011
3,981
707
Ottawa
Dumb idea or not but instead of the two wildcard spots why not just have top 4 teams in each division make the post season?

Currently in the Atlantic the top four are

Florida

Toronto

Ottawa

Tampa

Have 1v4 and 2v3 no need for wildcard spot.

Could make rivalries more fun and intense since there's more chance of consistent rivalries. I remember the 2013 sens vs Habs series make hate Montreal alot. Think what a Battle of Ontario could do.

Out west we could get Battle of Alberta and Vegas vs Kings. Bettman would be grinning from joy.

Edit: soo top 4 teams in each of the four Divisions would make it in no wildcard spots. Meaning 16 teams qualify.
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If you whisper this idea down an abandoned well at midnight you’ll have a better chance of seeing it brought to life than suggesting this to the NHL.
 
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syz said:
Consistent rivalries have been proven boring at this point tbh. Go back to 1-8. Nobody wants to see Oilers/Kings again.
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I disagree.

Ironically, if we went back to 1-8 right at this moment guess who the Oilers would be playing? You can't make this up :biglaugh:

Screenshot_20250201_024548_NHL.jpg
 
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syz said:
Consistent rivalries have been proven boring at this point tbh. Go back to 1-8. Nobody wants to see Oilers/Kings again.
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I really doubt the market research supports this. Rivalry games drive ratings, and in the long term they build the identity of a team generation over generation. Whereas the most random matchups, say two nonconference opponents with no history against each other, are where you see the most empty seats.

To the OP, the biggest argument against this is that often the divisions are imbalanced. This change would lead to a worse #4 team making the playoffs over a better #5 team in the other division. It’s probably preferable from a TV standpoint — in West currently it would change things from EDM/COL and WPG/CGY to instead be EDM/CGY and WPG/COL. But from a competitive standpoint, teams and owners want to see the better team get into the spot they’ve earned.
 
Tried before…… in the 1980s and 90s …..

It was changed because it sucked aaa

The Smyth Division was stacked and powerful and the first 2 rounds in the Smythe was the best hockey of the year.

The Norris was a joke and every year.consisted of mostly beer league teams.

And that was when there was only 21 teams and only 5 teams missed the playoffs
 
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Get rid of the Divisions, keep Conferences, do the playoffs 1-8.

OR

If you want to make it spicy, have 1-6 be straight up qualified for the playoffs, then before the playoffs proper have 7-10 do a best of 5 series (7vs10, 8vs9) with the winners of each series being qualified in spot 7 and 8.
 
NHL Dude 120 said:
Dumb idea or not but instead of the two wildcard spots why not just have top 4 teams in each division make the post season?

Currently in the Atlantic the top four are

Florida

Toronto

Ottawa

Tampa

Have 1v4 and 2v3 no need for wildcard spot.

Could make rivalries more fun and intense since there's more chance of consistent rivalries. I remember the 2013 sens vs Habs series make hate Montreal alot. Think what a Battle of Ontario could do.

Out west we could get Battle of Alberta and Vegas vs Kings. Bettman would be grinning from joy.

Edit: soo top 4 teams in each of the four Divisions would make it in no wildcard spots. Meaning 16 teams qualify.
Click to expand...
They had that, issue is teams with fewer points in one conference, sometimes get in. Thankfully they dumped that method.
I like that it’s no longer that way.

Currently there is always a 2 vs 3 matchup in each division, and a chance at 1 vs 4.
 
DEANYOUNGBLOOD17 said:
And that was when there was only 21 teams and only 5 teams missed the playoffs
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And that right there is why it will never be like that again if they went all-Divisional for the playoffs!

I agree that there would be a lot of repeat matchups that aren't very compelling (EDM/LA, TOR/TB, etc...) but there will also be lots and lots of TOR/BOS, PIT/PHI, NYR/NYI, CGY/EDM, etc...

They could just make the 1st round divisional, then within-conference in round 2, and league-wide in round 3, so that teams from the same conference can play in the Finals.

They could also (and should, imho) create a play-in round by reducing regular season games to 76 instead of 82 (this would happen if they do 4 games vs. Divisional opponents and 2 games vs all other teams). After the 76 games, you get a 4th vs. 5th best of 5 series in each division (right now: CGY/VAN, COL/UTH, TB/BOS, CBJ/NYI), and a 6-game "round robin", where the top 3 (clinched) teams play 3 games head-to-head against each other, counted as extra regular season games in order to fairly jockey for seeding. This way, a strong division would only send their 6th-8th seeds packing, and 5th can move on, but only if they get past 4th head to head in a playoff series. :D
 
I want to see the best teams from each conference in the playoffs. The WC does a decent job of that. A weak division getting a 4th team in just because is not optimal.
 
This is actually one of the worst playoff realignment ideas I've seen in a while. The teams play so many inter-division and inter-conference games now, points is actually a pretty good gauge about how good a team is compared to the rest if the league. If we went back to 1 inter-conference game, 2 inter-division game and 5 division games, you could have an argument about one division being weaker than the other and reaping the benefits of a grabbing the extra WC spot.
 
NHL Dude 120 said:
Dumb idea or not but instead of the two wildcard spots why not just have top 4 teams in each division make the post season?

Currently in the Atlantic the top four are

Florida

Toronto

Ottawa

Tampa

Have 1v4 and 2v3 no need for wildcard spot.

Could make rivalries more fun and intense since there's more chance of consistent rivalries. I remember the 2013 sens vs Habs series make hate Montreal alot. Think what a Battle of Ontario could do.

Out west we could get Battle of Alberta and Vegas vs Kings. Bettman would be grinning from joy.

Edit: soo top 4 teams in each of the four Divisions would make it in no wildcard spots. Meaning 16 teams qualify.
Click to expand...
Nothing to do with Ottawa precarious wildcard situation right ;) ?
 
x Tame Impala said:
The Wildcard spots account for differences in strength of division.
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Yes, people would flip out if 5th in one division is 10 points better than 4th in the other division, but doesn’t get in the playoffs because it’s decided by top 4 in each division.
 
Division winners are locks.

Then it should just be the teams with the most points afterwards. Who cares what division someone is from. The best make it in and rivalries form naturally and evolve over time.
 
They need to expand the wildcard there are 32 teams and the same amount make playoffs as when there were 22 teams.

Top 3 division guaranteed playoffs.

Have 4 wild card teams play a best of three
WC 1 vs WC 4
WC 2 vs WC 3

Top team in divisions plays the wild card winners.

Why?
- Puts more importance on seeding. Better seed less playoff rounds.
- More teams feel like they are playing for something so more fans invested $$$
 
tarheelhockey said:
To the OP, the biggest argument against this is that often the divisions are imbalanced. This change would lead to a worse #4 team making the playoffs over a better #5 team in the other division. It’s probably preferable from a TV standpoint — in West currently it would change things from EDM/COL and WPG/CGY to instead be EDM/CGY and WPG/COL. But from a competitive standpoint, teams and owners want to see the better team get into the spot they’ve earned.
Click to expand...
This is 100% the reason to stay away from it. We’ve already seen the suggestion at work in the NHL, there is good reason they moved way from it
 
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