Does anyone else find this Bettman statement

"There are at least seven teams that were on the bubble of making the playoffs and not all of the teams had played the same number of games," Bettman told FOX Business Network on Wednesday. "Whatever we do to come back ... whether it's complete the regular season in whole or in part, whether or not it's expanded playoffs, we're going to have to do something that's fair and has integrity."

a little hypocritical considering the NHL actively uses a playoff format that prioritizes rivalries over proper seeding and fairness, and therefore compromises the integrity of the playoffs?

I dont think you can fault them for trying to even the number of games played before finalizing the standings. The normal playoff format is a whole other discussion.

For the division and wildcard playoff format (where a maximum of 5 teams from one division can make the playoffs) its unfair to teams in the Metro who wont make the playoffs while weaker teams in other divisions get in. You can argue it would be more fair to not stratify teams into groups so much and just do the top 16 team get in. But the problem with doing that is that the scheduling favours certain teams who play in divisions with many weak teams. There are 8 teams in the NHL who are at or below 0.500 point percentage. 4 of these teams are in the atlantic and 3 are in the pacific. Since teams are scheduled to play against teams in their division more often, teams like boston, toronto, tampa, florida, vegas, edmonton, calgary, vancouver all get easier schedules since they play against bad teams so much more frequently that teams in the metro and central. This inflates point totals of teams in divisions with weak opponents compared to teams in divisions where every team is competitive.

a heavily exaggerated example:

two identical teams (A and B) are average. against strong opponents they have a 30% win rate (0.6 points per game) and against weak opponents they have a 70% win rate (1.4 points per game)

team A plays in a division with 4 weak opponents and 3 strong opponents (like the atlantic)
team B plays in a division with 1 weak opponent and 6 strong opponents (like the metro)

lets say they both play against each team in their division once.

team A expected points = 1.4*4+0.6*3 = 7.4 points in 7 games (0.529 point percentage)
team B expected points = 1.4*1+0.6*6 = 5 expected points in 7 games (0.357 point percentage)

equal teams can have drastically different point percentages based on which teams they play against more. you cant really compare points of teams like Toronto who have played against bad teams (0.500 or worse winning percentage) 20 times to teams like Dallas who have played bad teams only 12 times. Thats a huge advantage to teams in the pacific and atlantic.

The only way to truly balance everything fairly is if every team plays every other team an equal number of times and then everyone is ranked 1-31 and top 16 make playoffs. The problem with this is the travel, so it will never happen.

Yes, I understand that they can't make it 100% fair, but they can sure do a hell of a lot better than they are. It just pisses me off to hear him talk about integrity and fairness when they took a step backwards from that and are sticking to their guns on it.

Why should the Kings and Ducks and Sharks have to play more games just to see if Florida's long-shot to make the playoffs comes in?

As @moli92 points out, the schedule is already inherently unfair.

I don't care whether the playoff teams are determined by reverting to the records of all teams at 68 games or computing the cutoff via points-per-game, just get the playoffs going if we're not going to abandon the season completely. Resuming the regular season is moronic. But then, so was the 2004-2005 lockout.

To me, those are the options that make the most sense (68 games and Points%).

For the actual playoff format though, once Seattle comes in, I'd like to see it based on conference, both in terms of seeding and scheduling. Obviously there are other details that the league has to consider, so there is probably a reason why this can't happen, but I'd do something like this: 77 game season, each team plays every other team in their conference 3 times (One team will have an extra home ice advantage date in each match-up, rotate it year to year), and play each team in the opposite conference twice. Seed 1 vs 8 style like it used to be. I think this would create fairness with the seeding in each conference at least, because they've played the same amount of games against each team. I'm sure there are still issues with this, but it seems better than how it is now. Having a format where it is possible for the number 2 and 3 teams in the league (based on points) to play in the first round is disgusting to me.

Or expand to an 84-game schedule and play every other team in your own conference twice home and twice away.

You KNOW the owners are going to be voting for a couple of extra games and the resulting extra income, right?

Edit: Wait a minute . . . I think I did the math wrong . . . 15 times 4 = 60 plus 32 = 92.

Never mind.

It would take a 92 game schedule to do that wouldn't it? I was going to suggest schedule expansion, but when I saw 92, I figured 10 extra games would probable be too much. But if I'm wrong on that and it's 84, that could work.

Edit:
Play each team in your Conference 4 times = 15 x 4 = 60
Play the other conference teams twice each = 16 x 2 = 32 (16 with Seattle)

I corrected my math error while you were typing . . . see the amended comment . . . the 84-game schedule would be if you played each team in your own DIVISION four times and each team in the other division in your conference three times. I actually would be willing to bet that that is what they're going to do.

Yeah, that's what they currently do. I wanted to get away from that for the other format that I suggested, because if the seeding is by conference, I think it is the most fair to have each team play everyone else in the conference the same amount of times.

That way it somewhat fixes the problem moli92 was talking about

That is certainly the fairest way to schedule, and would also benefit the players' health by shortening the season by 5 games and two weeks, but after the financial bath the teams will be taking this year, no owner will agree to a reduction in games.

Yeah, that's one of the problems. That's why I was specific on the Seattle thing. It keeps the number at 77 which isn't a huge hit, and also the money from them maybe helps the league bounce back in a way that allows this to be an option. It's just an idea. What I want but will probably never get.