Which playoff round is the most fun to watch?

[banks]

Leaving your favourite team out of it. Which round of the playoffs is the most fun/entertaining to watch and follow?

Round 1: Just the sheer amount of important hockey games. 8 matchups, 3 or 4 games every night. It's an overload of content!

Round 2: Quite often there's some 'clash of the titans' matchups in round 2. Storylines are forming for some players and teams. Specifically, this is when an underdog/Cinderella story can truly begin.

Round 3: Conference Finals! Great teams trying to slug it out to make it to the finals. Usually all 4 of the remaining teams are either elite or on a crazy hot streak! Some of the highest quality hockey will be in this round.

Round 4: The final. Players and teams may be beaten and broken. Lots of playing through injuries. But the whole year comes down to this round. This is the one that decides it all. Tons of attention and scrutiny, where every single shift could be the difference.

 

[1specter]

Round 1 is the most chaos and also the most amount of hockey, so it's general pretty fun. Round 3 you get the cream of the crop teams, and often times the quality of hockey in the conference finals are better than the finals themselves.

 

[acor]

The one that doesn't contain Kings-Oilers matchup...

 

[sbhnur]

It's always round one. So much energy, so much tension and so much thrill of anticipation - and healthy players plus a great schedule. It gets a tiny bit less interesting with every round. The finals are too late imo.

 

[NyQuil]

Always the first.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Round one is always the best.

 

[banks]

Round 1 is the most chaos and also the most amount of hockey, so it's general pretty fun. Round 3 you get the cream of the crop teams, and often times the quality of hockey in the conference finals are better than the finals themselves.

I agree about round 3. Those games are usually the best players in the league playing at their best. Teams are a bit tired and banged up by the cup final, and it becomes a bit of a battle of attrition.

I still voted for the Cup Final, just because the stakes are so high and you get to see a championship decided. But I'd say round 3 is close behind.

 

[Erik Alfredsson]

It kind of depends on the matchups. Usually round 1 has at least a few really good series, so it's the safest bet.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Round 1, players are freshest, and there is multiple games each night, to watch.

 

[JohanFranzenstein]

Love the Final. Thats the series that creates legends.

 

[NyQuil]

I agree about round 3. Those games are usually the best players in the league playing at their best. Teams are a bit tired and banged up by the cup final, and it becomes a bit of a battle of attrition.

I still voted for the Cup Final, just because the stakes are so high and you get to see a championship decided. But I'd say round 3 is close behind.

Typically I find that the better teams tend to give up less and make fewer errors, so it becomes more of a slog the further you go from a purely entertainment point of view.

 

[Captain Mountain]

Round 1 of the NHL playoffs is some of the best NA sports have to offer.

Other rounds can be better depending on the year, but round 1 always has at least a couple absolute banger series.

 

[Coffee]

It gets depressing sometimes after the first round

 

[Kingfan1967]

Conference Finals has the Best Hockey, and most people can watch every second of every game. Round 1 has the most Hockey and it's impossible to watch it all. I vote for the Conference Finals

 

[SheldonJPlankton]

The pretenders are all in round one. Every so often, a pretender will slide into round two. Very seldom will a pretender make round three and by round four nearly every team is legitimate.

I'll say round three. Usually it's the top 4 contenders.

 

[Coffee]

Conference Finals has the Best Hockey, and most people can watch every second of every game. Round 1 has the most Hockey and it's impossible to watch it all. I vote for the Conference Finals

Just set up 5 screens

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

Round one always the most entertaining hockey, but conference finals have the most drama

 

[TruePowerSlave]

Round 1, but it can depend on the matcups.

Every team is fresh and going all out. Later on the injuries start piling up and guys are banged up.

 

[bobholly39]

Unpredictability is what makes sports - of any kind - always fun for me. And there's so much of it in round 1. So it's definitely the most fun.

So many teams going in with huge expectations this year. Leafs to finally overcoe. Tampa ready for a run after a couple of slow years. Florida itching for a 3 peat. Carolina to finally succeed in playoffs. NJ to prove they can do it without Hughes. Caps leading the league with all the momentum of Ovi's great run. Sens/Habs ready to play underdog and beat teams. And that's not even talking about the West where all the contenders like Dalls, Colorado, Edmonton, Vegas, Winnipeg are...let alone Blues with their ~12 game winning streak.

It's fun because there's definitely going to be surprises. Some inspiring performances. Some crazy comebacks, etc. And there's also the excitement of trying to figure out who matches out with who come round 2.

In terms of "quality of play" I'm not sure round 1 is necessarily best - often it's round 3, sometimes round 4, but I don't even care about that. Give me the fun and excitement of round 1 above all else

 

[authentic]

It gets depressing sometimes after the first round

As a Leafs fan, tell me about it

 

[Sky04]

Rounds 1 and 3, finals can be hit or miss but the conference finals generally have great match ups.

 

[A1LeafNation]

Round 4 starts too late just drags on. It's most fun for the fans of the two teams competing.

Everyone else enjoying summer and are casuals at that point.

 

[JKG33]

It used to be rd 2. The dogwater teams would be filtered out after rd 1. So every night you'd get a B2B with a mix of 8 very good teams. Hockey was always on, but it was mostly one game at a time filled with teams who actually deserved the spotlight.

This was ruined by the divisional playoff. Now the random seeding guarantees some elite teams are eliminated early while some dogwater teams get to advance all because of unfair matchups.

Based on the poll today, rd 1 is the only answer. After that there's a huge drop-off.

 

[SeanMoneyHands]

Round 1 by far. Then it usually goes downhill from there.

 

[Raccoon Jesus]

Round 1 is the most wonderful time of the year for me

Sheer volume of hockey and it's all high-stakes, no one leaves anything on the table

Close 2nd to round 3 though, i like the 'one a day' pacing of big games...but having a flood of games in round 1 is bonkers