Why the NHL Shouldn’t Expand the Playoffs Despite League Growth

A lot has changed about the NHL playoffs since the afternoon of May 24, 1980, when the New York Islanders won the first of their four consecutive Stanley Cups by beating the Philadelphia Flyers in overtime of a Game 6 broadcast live on CBS.

You read that right. We are fewer than 50 years removed from the Stanley Cup being decided in the afternoon on CBS.

But one thing that hasn’t changed is the number of teams vying for the Cup in the playoffs. The Islanders emerged from a 16-club field, just as they did the next three seasons and just as the next 41 champions with the exception of the 2020 tournament, when 24 teams made the postseason following the pandemic pause.

Other than that, the NHL hasn’t expanded the tournament even as it has increased the league from 21 to 32 teams — thereby turning what was once the easiest tournament to reach in the four major North American pro sports into arguably the hardest, especially with the parity created by the salary cap and the plethora of three-point games.

Since 1980, the NFL has gone from 10 playoff teams to 14 while expanding from 28 to 32 teams. Major League Baseball had just four playoff teams in a 26-team alignment in 1980 but now sends 12 of its 30 teams to the tournament. 

(And it’ll be 16 out of 32 teams following the next round of expansion following the next crippling but-we-can’t-afford-our-teams lockout by the owners, but that’s a topic for another time)

The NBA has officially played the same 16-team tournament since 1983, a span in which it has expanded from 23 to 32 franchises. But the NBA kinda sorta has 20 playoff teams thanks to the play-in round, which pits the seventh- through 10th-place clubs in each conference against one another to determine the final two berths.

With the same 32-team alignment and owners who love pocketing money from more playoff-related inventory, such a format would seem to be a good way for the NHL to expand the postseason without officially doing so.

But NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is in no rush to add playoff teams, even as at least two more expansion clubs seem likely to arrive sooner than later thanks to that estimated $2 billion entry fee.

And he’s right not to expand the postseason.

A play-in tournament might add a couple compelling potential playoff teams in the deeper Eastern Conference, where the Flyers are in the driver’s seat for the final playoff berth with 94 points and two games left to play. But the Western Conference, where the Los Angeles Kings lead the race for the second wild card with 89 points and three games left, is a mashup of mediocrity.

These quirks tend to even out over time. The final Western Conference playoff team had more points than the last Eastern Conference playoff team each of the previous three seasons.

Plus, as Jimmy Dugan said in A League Of Their Own: The hard is what makes it great.

The Ottawa Senators trailed the Detroit Red Wings by 15 points in mid-January but surged past them for a wild card berth. The Buffalo Sabres reached the playoffs for the first time since 2011 despite being last in the Eastern Conference in early December. The Columbus Blue Jackets still have a slim shot at qualifying even though they were last in the East in early January.

The Islanders led the Flyers by eight points at the Olympic break, but the devastation in their locker room Sunday night — when New York completed a late-season collapse by getting eliminated from playoff contention with a 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens — was a reminder that five very good months are not enough in a six-month season.

“Lot to think about, lot to wrap our heads around right now,” Islanders captain Anders Lee said. “It sucks.”

It’s supposed to be hard — a lot harder than it used to be.