TV Ratings for WC2025

[HockeyVirus]

The playoffs are a tournament, not a determination of who is the best team.

The RS is better suited as a measure of who the best team is.

The SCPO are simply a brief tournament designed to apply pressure to teams as the room for mistakes is much less and the role of luck and chance much higher.

Anyone who thinks the Florida Panthers are the best team in hockey because they won rhe Cup is confusing winning a tournament with determining the best team.

If the NHL did multiple SCPO during the same season, would anyone expect the same team wins all of them? So if you have different winners, how can any of them be deemed the best team?

So the long series becomes irrelevant since the whole thing isn't designed to ascertain the best team.

Not sure how you can watch the Panthers do what they did to 4 contending teams and say they are not the best team in hockey.

 

[PistolPete]

Not sure how you can watch the Panthers do what they did to 4 contending teams and say they are not the best team in hockey.

Because they won a tournament.

And where did they finish in the RS?

Even "best" changes depending on your metric.

 

[Summer Rose]

Because they won a tournament.

And where did they finish in the RS?

Even "best" changes depending on your metric.

Still, the NHL plays an uneven schedule (as is common in North American leagues) so that calling the President's Trophy winners the "best team" really isn't all that accurate.

Technically the fairest way to determine a "best team" out of a group of team is to do what European soccer leagues tend to do, which is to have them play a double round robin against each other (once at home and once away). But you can't really get away with that in a North American league with such a huge geographical footprint. At least, not when it's covering a lot of the continent, since in the O6 era they would play 50 games, and I'm pretty sure that was just in the form of 5 home games against each team, then 5 away games against each team. But then they had playoffs afterwards anyway, because it was an opportunity to make more money.

 

[PistolPete]

Still, the NHL plays an uneven schedule (as is common in North American leagues) so that calling the President's Trophy winners the "best team" really isn't all that accurate.

Technically the fairest way to determine a "best team" out of a group of team is to do what European soccer leagues tend to do, which is to have them play a double round robin against each other (once at home and once away). But you can't really get away with that in a North American league with such a huge geographical footprint. At least, not when it's covering a lot of the continent, since in the O6 era they would play 50 games, and I'm pretty sure that was just in the form of 5 home games against each team, then 5 away games against each team. But then they had playoffs afterwards anyway, because it was an opportunity to make more money.

Exactly.

Even IIHF tournaments were round Robin tables but they saw the $$$$ in PO rounds.

And even the tables they use in soccer, yeah, first to worst is going to be clear but once you get the clusters, how much better is first from second? 8th from 9th? At this point random chance is likely as much or more of a factor than one team truly being better than the other- meaning of you replayed the games it's not certain the seedings would remain the same.

I think people want to put more weight into the standings and especially SCPO by thinking it is ascertaining the best team rather than merely being a short tournament (relative to the RS anyway) of which a "champion" is crowned.