From Kings v Oilers to Leafs v Bruins, the league\u2019s divisional structure has turned once-thrilling postseason clashes into stale reruns. Is it time for a change?<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s the stupidest thing ever.\u201d This was Washington Capitals\u2019 forward Daniel Winnik\u2019s review in 2017 of the NHL\u2019s still (somewhat) new playoff format<\/a>. Three seasons earlier, along with realigning its divisions, the NHL had abandoned it\u2019s previous, simple playoff arrangement. For 20 years, the top eight teams from each conference qualified for the playoffs, with the first-placed team playing the eighth-placed team, the second-placed team played the seventh, and so on. \u201cI don\u2019t know why it\u2019s not one to eight,\u201d Winnik said. \u201cI don\u2019t know why we got away from that.\u201d A lot of people are still asking the same question.<\/p>\n On Sunday, as the NHL locked in its first Western conference playoff matchup, confirming that the Dallas Stars will face the Colorado Avalanche, some fans took to online forums to both celebrate and lament. \u201cAnybody else hate the divisional format? I truly think both of these teams are legit contenders,\u201d one user posted to the r\/hockey subreddit<\/a> under a link announcing the matchup. \u201cPretty sure literally everyone does,\u201d another responded<\/a>. Indeed, it seems unfair that one of the top teams in the West will be eliminated so soon into the postseason. Worse, is that, thanks in part to the playoff format, fans have seen this matchup coming for ages \u2013 a predictability that is supposed to build anticipation, but has instead become annoying.<\/p>\n Continue reading…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" From Kings v Oilers to Leafs v Bruins, the league\u2019s divisional structure has turned once-thrilling postseason clashes into stale reruns. Is it time for a change? \u201cIt\u2019s the stupidest thing ever.\u201d This was Washington Capitals\u2019 forward Daniel Winnik\u2019s review in 2017 of the NHL\u2019s still (somewhat) new playoff format. Three seasons earlier, along with realigning … Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-blog"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39114\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/news2shorts.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}