I know this isn't the first time this idea has been thought of, but I'm looking to see the reaction to allowing 20 teams into the Stanley Cup playoffs. The most common formula to make this happen is going back to Conference seedings and have a 4 team playoff qualifier Round. Teams 1-6 in each Conference get a 'bye' week while Team 7 plays Team 10 and Team 8 plays Team 9 in a quick best out of 3 Games Round. Having Team 9 and 10 Team play Game 1 at home than both Game 2 and 3 would be played at Team 7 and Team 8 home, so a 3 games in 5 nights if needed. Though to fit this into the NHL schedule, the Regular season would be reduced to 80 games, meaning every NHL owner would have to give up one home game to increase the potential of making the Playoffs. But by allowing Team 9 and Team 10 host the first game it grants them at least 1 playoff home gate money. Or would the Top 6 Conference Teams suffer from the one week off ?

why not just make the season longer and have no playoffs

This 20 team playoff is good for all, NHL teams make more money from playoff games than regular season games, fans get to watch the chances of their team getting into the Stanley Cup increase and this idea isn't new or radical, back in the late '70s there was a "Playoff Qualifier Round" and the NHL always had the 2/3rds of the teams get into the Playoffs (4 from 6 and 16 from 24). Time to use that equation again.

Until there is a legitimate problem with the number of teams in the playoffs (not the format itself, which has been much discussed), there's no point in changing anything up.

16 from 32 will suck large, some may weather hockey city fans will lose interest and switch sports when their team goes 5+ years with no playoff action.

why not have all 32 teams in the playoffs, so no one misses out

why not stop posting in my thread with stupid comments, move along.

Why not have 31 nets, one for each team, and play one big 10 hour game and whoever wins that game wins the Stanley cup?

i'll stop posting comments when you stop posting stupid questions

stupid question ? you do know the NHL owners and Bettman have put real time and thought into this question, more time and thought than anyone of your posts, like I said MOVE ALONG.

I don't think it's a stupid question, but i don't like the idea of a 20-team playoff ... Bettman doesn't like it, either.

For the majority of the long history of the NHL they have used a 2/3rds playoff formula, with continue expansion to 32 teams a %50 ratio is actually not traditional to the NHL history. Might as well be like MLB.

For the majority of the long history of the NHL, McDavid hasn't been playing. I think that means he's going to retire in the next few years.

cool so they've talked about it maybe once. doesn't mean it's happening.

the number of playoff teams are fine as they are; teams should be incentivized to be more competitive during the 82 game season instead of being rewarded for mediocrity.

i'll admit i was a little harsh calling this a stupid question, but i don't like the idea of expanding the playoffs based on some of your reasoning. i really don't care about some billionaires lining their pockets on the backs of players, and the system the nhl used during the 70s and 80s when they were expanding wasn't the greatest.

the only change i would make it to seed team based on conference rank again (1v8, 2v7, etc), so better season teams get a bigger edge.

comparing a sport where over half of the teams get in now to a sport where 1/3 of the teams get in and its arguably the most boring of the 4 major sports is a bad look. You want to fix hockey viewership and playoffs? market it better, get better national guys, let people hear a local broadcast. I cant tell you how much ide rather listen to jack edwards over eddie O just because of how many times eddie would say the wrong player, or just flat out crap on the team for no reason. As a fan you want to hear the bias. But adding another 4 teams to the playoff picture. setting seattle aside, you would have added from this past year: Montreal 96 points, Florida 86 points, Coyotes 86 points, Chicago 84 points. You are making the regular season less meaningful. You would see less competition not more. they do 16 teams because it makes the most sense in terms of seeding and action. if you ended up doing 10 from each conference. your 2nd round has 5 teams. there are conferences for viewership and travel reasons. would you want the bruins flying to san jose and vise versa for a 7 game series watching the games in san jose starting at 10pm and the ones in boston at 7? or since its nbc 11 pm and 8pm? It just doesnt make pheasible sense. They just need to change the format and do a true number 1 plays 8 number 2 plays 7 etc. stop this division crap.

@mondo Thank you for the more well thought out response and yes the NHL needs to go back to Conference seeding like you said. Considering that last season all four Top seeded teams were knocked out in the first Round by the wild card teams, it proves that, in the NHL even team 17 to 20 could make it to the Finals if given a chance, the NHL is no NBA when it comes to playoffs surprises (lack of).

@hanson493 in my first post I explained the mostly like Playoff formula which would be used for 20 teams, Conference teams 1-6 get an one week bye and Team 7 v Team10 and Team 8 v Team 9 play in a quick best of 3 games playoff qualifier Round, than a re-seed the 8 Conference teams. Maybe those extra couple games the bottom seed teams play make it harder to compete against the Top seeds. Or maybe the extra bye week will have a more upset effect with Top seeds getting lazy waiting for the Qualifier Round to end.

so you want to include a wildcard essentially and then let the wild card winners play teams 1 and 2. thats pretty much how it is now but with better competition. from this past year would you have wanted to watch a calgary vs chicago or arizona playoff matchup? when both of those teams had 86 and 84 points respectively. I personally dont want to see close to .500 teams making the playoffs and having the possibility to go far in the playoffs. I dont find that exciting, and I think that ruins the value of not only the original 82 game schedule but the playoffs in general. The playoffs need to switch back to conference seeding of true 1v8 2v7 3v6 4v5 and not do this division stuff they are doing. adding more teams to the playoffs just muddies the water between competitive games and non competitive games. The only team I think you can make a case that could have been added to the playoffs last year was montreal because they only missed by 2 points. But i also think that adds some of the excitement to the end of the schedule because they are still playing meaningful games in april. Teams winning and losing to get the matchups they want. that kind of gets ruined if you add in weaker tier teams and then reseed it all.

The NHL playoffs are so wild and unpredictable that a cinderella team can make it to the Finals, why is that bad for business? The NBA fans have been getting tired of watching the same 3-4 elite teams always winning, in fact the 'underdog' Raptors were being heavily supported to defeat the GSW.

NBA is a superstar driven sport with a soft cap. The league shouldnt have let durant sign with GS and things would have been more competitive. NHL already has the chance that a cinderella team could make it to the finals. 3 out of the 4 top seeds were knocked out first round this year. what i DONT want to see is a team thats essentially a .500 team making the playoffs and getting lucky and beating a team that was a .750 team. I dont want to see a team that dominated the entire regular season lose to an 80-86 point team. I also dont want to watch that product because it should be the 1 seed in 4 almost every time. Keep it the way it is, keep it competitive. The more inclusive you are the less trade deadline deals there are because the less true sellers there are.

All top seeds lost in round one. Which top seed are you saying didn't lose in the first round? Washington, Tampa Bay, Nashville, and Calgary all lost in round 1 ... and i agree with you about the 16 teams in the playoffs. I think they should keep it the way it is. I mean, Minnesota made the playoffs in 2016 with 87 points, but they lost to Dallas. I guess officially that isn't an 80-86 point team. 80 is way too low, but with the current playoff bracket, you're going to sometimes get 84-86 point teams in the playoffs, or at least 86-89 or whatever. And sometimes you'll have 96 point teams miss the playoffs, like Montreal this year. Philadelphia went to the final in 2010 as an 88 point team ... Montreal made it to round 3 that year as an 88 point team, and that included them beating a team with 33 more points than them in the regular season. But as long as it was allowed with the playoff bracket, it's okay. 16 teams could get in and they weren't even a top 16 team. Philly wasn't, either. Montreal finished 19th and took out the #1 team in the regular season ... Philadelphia finished 18th and went to the final ... i have no problem with that, because they were both in the top 8 teams in their conference. I do think 16 teams is the right number though. That makes it harder to make the playoffs, and especially when Seattle comes in, it works well, because half the teams will make the playoffs and half will miss. The one thing i don't agree with is the trade deadline deals. How does that have anything to do with this? I know it will probably mean less trade deadline deals, but is that seriously how they'd make the decision? They have nothing to do with the decision making here.

When more than half the teams make the playoffs, you're bound to have sub .500 teams make the playoffs. Every so often a team that's won less than 41 games will make it in.

The point system skews it as well; Colorado had less wins than Arizona yet the former made it in because they lost in overtime more often.

First, i was strictly talking as if it was an 8 seeded playoff not 2 4 seeded playoffs. i considered washington to be the 3 seed last year even though they wont the metro as they technically finished behind the bruins. On to the point about the trade deadline, I think it just makes it a competitive balance issue. the more teams you have "competing" for playoff spots, the less willing fringe teams are going to trade away players at the deadline. This takes some of the draw and excitement away from the trade deadline. Look at the MLB with adding the 2nd wildcard. There used to be major trades happening. Now teams are hesitant because they dont want to mortgage their future on a 1 game play in. If you added 2 teams from each conference that would mean coyotes blackhawks and habs panthers make it. on western conference side all but the kings were within 5 points of what would be the last wildcard spot. so the only team potentially selling would be the kings? in the eastern conference. flyers and rangers were within 4 points. rangers were 8 back. flyers would probably have been more fighters down the stretch (2-8-0) if they knew they might have a chance. so that limits teams selling at the trade deadline to: rangers, sabres, redwings, devils, senators, kings. That drives player prices up and no deals would get done between contending teams. it would essentially eliminate major trade deadline moves. because almost everyone could still be in it with 2 months left.

I agree that there should only be 16 teams in the playoffs. I mean, if a team goes 40-32-10 that's 90 points and less than 41 wins. That could make the playoffs. I don't have a problem with the extra point for the OT/SO loss because if you keep games that close you should get something for it ... so, i don't have a problem with that.

I wasn't asking how it makes less deadline deals happen ... i completely understand that. The question i had was what's so important about creating more deadline deals? I do agree they shouldn't add more teams in the playoffs, but for different reasons. Not deadline deals. Teams will decide what to do based on the playoff format. However, for other reasons, i agree there should only be 16 teams in the playoffs. I just prefer having the four rounds with every team and not doing extra rounds with teams skipping round. I like the playoffs the way it is, with 16 teams, 4 rounds, all best-of-sevens ... the argument i would make is that maybe the NHL should do 1-8 instead of the 1-3 + 2 WCs in each conference. I don't have a big problem with the current playoff format, but i wouldn't mind seeing a change as long as they still do 4 rounds, 16 teams, all best-of-sevens ... but the way they find the matchups could be changed.

I answered it and said competitive balance. if there are less "deadline deals" you dont have teams like columbus selling the farm for guys like duchene and dzingel. theres less demand for players to elevate the squad at the deadline because there is more of a chance you will get in with your current squad and anything can happen. Think about if that columbus trade for duchene and dzingel doesnt happen. sure columbus might not sweep the lightning. but they dont give up any assets because they are already in. Less player movement means stagnant teams. Ottawa gets none of that draft capitol. Flyers are still in it do they trade simmonds? does this influence the stone trade at all meaning does it now cost more to get stone than it already did? Does granlund or coyle get moved because minnesota is still in it at 20 teams. There were alot of trades that went down around the trade deadline there were a decent amount of pieces moved. if you add more teams to the playoff hunt. less teams are willing to buy/sell. this changes the entire landscape of the nhl and how you go about buying and selling and building a roster.