New Playoffs Format
Published in August 2001 - Jeff Z. Klein & Karl-Eric Reif

This is an old item, but it hasn't gone stale: it's still simmering on a back burner in the NHL's laboratory and giving us all reason to worry. And it's also worth bringing up because it's about the only time Gary Bettman has actually said the right thing, which is an event you'll want to mark on your calendar.

Last season, Bloomberg News polled presidents, general managers, and coaches of the NHL's 30 teams and found 11 favored expanding the Stanley Cup playoff field from 16 teams to 20. Ten more said they were seriously considering it, three were for keeping the current format, and six had no comment.

"It's something that eventually has to happen," said St. Louis GM Larry Pleau. The clubs supporting the idea said they want to increase revenue and the percentage of teams making the playoffs, while somehow maintaining the competitive balance of the regular season. Glen Sather, then Edmonton president, originally proposed enlarging the playoff field as a way to raise revenue for small market teams. Each playoff game generates an estimated $500,000 to $1 million for club owners, and doesn't cost teams any additional payroll for players, who are paid a set salary whether their teams make the postseason or not.

"I'd like to go to ten teams in each conference," said Detroit GM Ken Holland, whose team has now made the playoffs 11 consecutive seasons and won the Cup in 1997 and '98. "With eight now they're great races, but some teams with 80 points didn't make the playoffs."

Like a team that loses as often as it wins deserves a shot at the Stanley Cup?

"People might think I'm crazy, but I'm from the old school and I like the system the way it is," said Atlanta GM Don Waddell, who is not crazy and is to be applauded. Although frankly, our position is that 16 teams and four rounds is already too much. The playoffs, for us and many fans, lost a huge measure of their dramatic momentum when the nifty bing-bang-boom! three-round format was replaced in 1980 by the ponderous bam, whirr, clunk, thud of the four-round format that doubled the number of post-season teams and drags the playoffs into June. Expanding the field also means lengthening the post-season tourney even further, and, of course, lowering the standard for qualifying. Had the bar been lowered to allow 20 teams to pass in 2001, the .470 Predators and the .433 Rangers would both have cluttered the competition for hockey's Holy Grail.

The change was discussed at the March 2000 general manager's meeting, but "is not on the radar screen right now," said Bettman, who added he's in favor of the current format because of last season's races for division titles and playoff berths that went down to the final weekend. "I know it's disappointing for teams when they don't make it," Bettman said. "But I loved having the regular season this good."

The unwieldy logistics of winnowing 20 teams from six divisions down to eight-teams-then-four-then-two may do as much as anything else to forestall the plan. The inconvenient numbers would seem to require a cumbersome amount of first- or second-round byes, which would defeat the plan's revenue-based purpose.

On the other hand, if there's a way to squeeze another nickel out of the fans, don't think the owners won't figure out a way to do it, the good of the game be damned. You know it wouldn't bother them a bit if non-playoff teams had to start the season in August while the Stanley Cup Final was still being played.

Jeff Z. Klein and Karl-Eric Reif. Klein and Reif write for 'The New York Times' and 'The Village Voice' and are the authors of 'The Death of Hockey,' 'The Coolest Guys On Ice,' 'Original Six,' 'The All-New Hockey Compendium,' and other works. 

Copyright © 2001 -  "Above & Beyond Hockey" and Jeff Z. Klein & Karl-Eric Reif