Confirmed - 24-Team Playoffs Format Discussion Thread

[cjb]

better than cancelling i guess

[30ranfordfan]

I'd say it's more because previous Cup-winning teams didn't get a 4 month break in the middle of the season. Teams absolutely can get hot, fans can absolutely influence a game/series. The reason I was an advocate for scrapping the season altogether (aside from the obvious health reasons) is that this is no longer the same season anymore. There's too big of a gap, there's too many variables, etc

Yeah, my take all along has been: Safety! If they can't play the games safely, don't play. The health of everyone is more important.

I certainly agree that having a 4 month break is not ideal, but if we required "only ideal" conditions, I can think of a couple of other seasons that would have been scraped in the past... and the 20-21 season would be gone too.

The 4 month break thing: Everyone got it, so why does it matter? The 2020 Champions are not going to be playing against the 2016 Champions.... so I don't think that things to be equitable between the two.

I do see an argument to be made that teams are not playing under the same set of circumstances that they believed they were playing under when the season began. Some teams might be better equipped to handle the long layoff, others worse. Is this something that will favour youth? I don't know.

What I don't get is that if any of those spots get into the top 3, each team has an equal chance to get said spot?! 2 better ways to handle this to prevent what the lottery is supposed to do (help bad teams get better, while making complete tanking not a guaranteed #1 draft).

1. Evaluate the 8 who don't make the true playoffs and assign the spot to the specified odds point (i.e. in Pittsburgh example, give them the lowest ranked odds of 2% or whatever it is)
2. Evaluate the 8 who don't make it and run the random based on their win % just like the initial draft. Why would you give Pittsburgh the same odds as Montreal (.580 vs .500 win percent)?
   
   1. If the top 3 are from the 7, the rest will get drawn in order of their win %, don't change that for round 2 draw either.

I'm confused as to how the draft will work (for the 8 teams that get bounced). I assumed the whole "unassigned" team thing, is because they will do the lottery draw before the play-ins start.... and Team E, with a 2.5% change of winning: We don't know who that is, and all the play-ins have to be completed before we can know.

Maybe I'm not following along correctly.... but this is what they've listed:

Qualifying Round Team A -- 6.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team B -- 5.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team C -- 3.5 percent
Qualifying Round Team D -- 3.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team E -- 2.5 percent
Qualifying Round Team F -- 2.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team G -- 1.5 percent
Qualifying Round Team H -- 1.0 percent

So there's a 24.5% (combined) of those teams winning.

I don't understand what the 2nd draw is for. If Team F wins the #2 pick.... they're drawing among the 8 eliminated to see who is Team F, rather than 'F' being assigned based on rank?

[sparty07]

I'm confused as to how the draft will work (for the 8 teams that get bounced). I assumed the whole "unassigned" team thing, is because they will do the lottery draw before the play-ins start.... and Team E, with a 2.5% change of winning: We don't know who that is, and all the play-ins have to be completed before we can know.

Maybe I'm not following along correctly.... but this is what they've listed:

Qualifying Round Team A -- 6.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team B -- 5.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team C -- 3.5 percent
Qualifying Round Team D -- 3.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team E -- 2.5 percent
Qualifying Round Team F -- 2.0 percent
Qualifying Round Team G -- 1.5 percent
Qualifying Round Team H -- 1.0 percent

So there's a 24.5% (combined) of those teams winning.

I don't understand what the 2nd draw is for. If Team F wins the #2 pick.... they're drawing among the 8 eliminated to see who is Team F, rather than 'F' being assigned based on rank?

My understanding is that if any of those spots goes 1, 2 or 3 in the first draft lottery, all 8 teams who lose their play in (best of 5) series will be entered into a second lotto with each having a 12.5% chance at that spot. This is where it seems stupid to me that the 9th best team in the league could have a 12.5% chance at a top 3 spot. In my opinion they should have done the draft as is with the slots and filled said slots once the play-in round is done (or better yet, just wait because whats another 2 weeks for the draft lottery. I'm assuming the draft now doesn't happen until the playoffs are done?

[OscarsCards]

Love the every year crying about everything threads. The wild card is trash, the playoff format is trash, draft lottery is a sham. And now it's the "this cup won't count".

[cygnusx1]

The 4 month break thing: Everyone got it, so why does it matter? The 2020 Champions are not going to be playing against the 2016 Champions.... so I don't think that things to be equitable between the two.

For sure everyone this year has a similarly fair shot, I'm just saying that personally I wouldn't equate this season's difficulty level with that of other seasons. Much of the reason for that is that any sports season is a long grind, so to have the strength and endurance and consistency to persevere is impressive. A good example would be last year's Blues team that was in last place in January but ended up winning the Cup. I don't think it would be nearly as impressive if they had a big 4 month break in between. It's practically a new season.

[cygnusx1]

Love the every year crying about everything threads. The wild card is trash, the playoff format is trash, draft lottery is a sham. And now it's the "this cup won't count".

I see many well thought out posts discussing the merits of both sides, and this post appears to be the only one crying about anything.

[RGM81]

My understanding is that if any of those spots goes 1, 2 or 3 in the first draft lottery, all 8 teams who lose their play in (best of 5) series will be entered into a second lotto with each having a 12.5% chance at that spot. This is where it seems stupid to me that the 9th best team in the league could have a 12.5% chance at a top 3 spot. In my opinion they should have done the draft as is with the slots and filled said slots once the play-in round is done (or better yet, just wait because whats another 2 weeks for the draft lottery. I'm assuming the draft now doesn't happen until the playoffs are done?

Correct, the Commissioner was talking about the draft yesterday and it may not happen until October now. The knock-on effect of this delay will be far-reaching to say the least.

Going back to all the draft lottery stuff...

These are the full odds, per nhl.com:

Team	P%	Odds
1. Detroit Red Wings	.275	18.5%
2. Ottawa Senators	.437	13.5%
3. Ottawa Senators*	.437	11.5%
4. Los Angeles Kings	.457	9.5%
5. Anaheim Ducks	.472	8.5%
6. New Jersey Devils	.493**	7.5%
7. Buffalo Sabres	.493**	6.5%
8. Team A	n/a	6.0%
9. Team B	n/a	5.0%
10. Team C	n/a	3.5%
11. Team D	n/a	3.0%
12. Team E	n/a	2.5%
13. Team F	n/a	2.0%
14. Team G	n/a	1.5%
15. Team H	n/a	1.0%

For the top 7 teams, nothing has changed. Those were their odds of getting the #1 overall pick before the re-jigged format.

This is where the fun begins.

If All Three Draws Are Won by Teams in #1-7 Group . . .
* The winning teams receive the respective top three selections in the 2020 NHL Draft. The remaining four teams in the #1-7 group not selected in the three draws are assigned NHL Draft positions 4 through 7 in inverse order of their points percentage at the time of the regular-season pause. The next eight Draft positions (8 through 15) will be assigned to the eight teams that do not advance from the Qualifying Round, in inverse order of their points percentage at the time of the regular-season pause. In these circumstances, Phase 2 of the Draft Lottery would not be necessary.

What I gather from this is that say Detroit-Ottawa-Buffalo ends up being 1-2-3. Great, easy. Ottawa's other pick is #4, then you get LA-Anaheim-NJ rounding out the top 7. 8-15 are based off who gets knocked out in the play-in round. Pittsburgh gets no advantage at all when if they get knocked out by Montreal--they don't "move up" to what would have been Montreal's #8 spot. It's all based on the points percentage so they're still going to be 15th because they had such a strong regular season record.

Now for the goofy stuff...

If the lotto ball for either 1-2-3 falls to a team in 8-15, the draw for that spot will take place after the qualifying round, and will be comprised of the 8 teams who don't advance. This is the ultimate wild card here:

* In each Phase 2 draw, all participants will have the same odds.

So if you're a fan of maximum chaos, let's continue with the notion of the Habs knocking off the Penguins. The 1st overall pick gets nabbed by a Phase 2 team. Any team that doesn't advance through the qualifying round has an equal 1-in-8 chance to win the lottery. Pittsburgh, despite being the highest-ranked regular season team that didn't get a bye into the first round, could jump all the way from 15th to 1st overall. They'd have to endure the humiliation of wasting a really strong regular season and the ignominy of losing to the Habs in a best-of-five series, but they'd have Alexis Lafreniere on their roster next season.

[mooneyes]

When will the next year season begin? Award the Cup and play a regular season game the next day! lol Talk about a Cup hangover. I assume it will be pushed back?

[RGM81]

When will the next year season begin? Award the Cup and play a regular season game the next day! lol Talk about a Cup hangover. I assume it will be pushed back?

Almost certainly the 2020-21 (could just end up being 2021) season will be delayed and a compressed schedule similar to the lockout year of 2013. We still don't know when all this will start, if there's going to be international travel and therefore quarantines enforced (i.e. Toronto and Vegas get picked to be the two hub cities), and the potential for a resurgence of COVID forcing further delay. The NHL has said that Phase 4 (GAMES) won't start until July at the earliest, so even if things flow smoothly from there that already takes us deep into September.

[RGM81]

For some reason this didn't embed properly earlier.

https://twitter.com/CanadiensMTL/sta...762729990?s=20