NHL Playoffs, round 2

[Spider-Dan]

Phishfan, I don't think I understand your question.

NFL playoffs are one game (because it's impractical for football teams to play seven games in 2 weeks).  In a one-game series, an upset is the cost of doing business.  However, the NHL playoffs are best-of-7.  When a #8 seed beats a #1 seed 4-1 and a #2 seed 4-0, something is fundamentally wrong with your method of seeding teams.

The most obvious comparison would be to the NBA.  PHI (a #8) just beat CHI (a #2) in 6 games.  The explanation: the reigning NBA MVP blew out his ACL in game 1.  There are only four 1-8 upsets in NBA playoff history, and all but one have extenuating circumstances:

2012 PHI over CHI 4-2- Rose blows out ACL
2007 GS over DAL 4-2- Don Nelson, GS's coach, basically built the Mavericks and knew them in and out; GS was 3-0 in the regular season against DAL, beating them by an average of 16.3 points
1999 NYK over MIA 3-2- strike-shortened season did not produce accurate seeding (NYK made it to the Finals)
1994 DEN over SEA 3-2- no real explanation (but this was in the 5-game-series era)

This is more of what I expect from seeding.  #8s should not regularly beat #1s, and they definitely shouldn't stomp them, then immediately play the #2 and sweep them.

[Brian Fein]

The seeding is based on regular season.  For example, perhaps the Kings' goalie - who is a staple of their team - missed 6 weeks due to injury during the regular season.  During that 6 weeks, the Kings went on a losing skid, dropping 12 of 15 games.  Of course this would affect their playoff seeding, while not taking away from their quality of team.

Not to mention, in the division the Kings are in, they were only 2 points (or 1 win) behind Phoenix, the #3 seed.

So, looking at the actual numbers, the Kings with their 95 points are not a slouch team.  The Western conference were tightly bunched this season, as 4 teams in the Central came in over 100 points, and all are at home right now.

[Spider-Dan]

Brian, that's potentially a fine explanation for this year.  But this year really isn't even an anomaly in the NHL; high seeds get taken out by low seeds so often that they decided to start reseeding the playoffs each round.

[Brian Fein]

Its not really re-seeding.  I don't know what you mean by that.  Its just the highest seed always plays the lowest seed, and so on.  Its not like the order ever changes.  The NFL does the same thing.  The NBA does it "tournament style," which I think is idiotic.

[wyvernmcd]

I'm far from a hockey fan, but this really turns me off about their playoffs.  So far, LAK (the #8 seed) beat the #1 seed 4-1 and the #2 seed 4-0.  Playoff hockey "upsets" are so common that they've been reseeding the NHL playoffs for almost 20 years.

I know there's an argument to be made for how much people love seeing upsets, and that's fine.  But why even bother seeding at all?  Wouldn't it be even more exciting if you had an NHL playoff lottery to determine the playoff pairings?

I think what is bothering you about this seems to be that a #8 really should not have a shot against a #1 beating them out 4 games to 1 because of the ranking however the West conference is always a tightly congested group when it comes to the top 8. If you look at the East they usually have a much further “degree of separation” when it comes to regular season points.
I should point out the year that Halak (goale) was playing for Montreal in the series between them and the Washington Capitals, the seeds were #1 v #8 however Montreal had the lowest point total of all 16 teams so when they beat the Capitals, that series (at least to me) felt more like an upset because it was the team with the best record against the team with the worst record (making the playoff cut). Not to say that the #8 beating the #1 is not equally an upset. In this case, people wrote in pen that Vancouver would have killed the Kings in the First round. Vancouver didn’t show up. They (in my book) were upset by a better, more motivated team. That still is exciting to me (not only because I dislike Luongo from a personal position) but because (unless you really pay attention to the west) no one really thought the Kings would win, let alone do it in 5 games.
I think players would seriously object to the lottery system for playoff seeding. Using an NHL example, when the NHL draft starts, the team with the worst record has highest lottery chance to land their #1 draft pick, however it is not a promise they will get the #1 draft pick (has happened on multiple occasions) so if a team goes 60 wins, for example, but does not get the #1 slot because of the lottery, the players will feel that they got robbed for playing a very good season but are not being rewarded with it and it will most likely deflate the play/motivation to play when the playoffs are ready to start up. I don’t think a lottery system would do anything good for any sport (really) to rank a team for playoffs based on the luck of the draw rather than how hard they push themselves throughout a season.

[Fins4ever]

Kings/Coyotes series should be very entertaining.

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I watched and rooted for the Coyotes last night when they played the Kings. They lost 4-2 but it could have been MUCH worse. I am afraid the Coyotes are over matched.

[Spider-Dan]

Its not really re-seeding.  I don't know what you mean by that.  Its just the highest seed always plays the lowest seed, and so on.

That is exactly what "reseeding" is: rearranging the brackets because of upsets.

It is true that the NFL reseeds, but they also play single-game series (and give a bye to the top two teams).  I can't think of any other sport in which they play multi-game playoff series and reseed.

The NBA does it "tournament style," which I think is idiotic.

...the playoffs are a tournament.

You only need to institute reseeding as a policy when your top seeds are being upset so frequently that the higher seeds that actually win the matchups that they are supposed to are penalized for it (e.g. this year, the NHL East semis would have been #1 vs. #5 and #6 vs. #7, while the West semis would have been #2 vs. #3 and #4 vs. #8).  In the NBA, this happens infrequently enough not to be a concern; in the NHL, it happens practically every year.  For purposes of comparison:

- in the last 10 NHL playoffs, a top two seed has lost to a bottom two seed 12 times
- in the last 10 NBA playoffs, a top two seed has lost to a bottom two seed 4 times

In the 2006 NHL playoffs, the lower seed won in all four Western Conference series.  That's insane.

[AZ Fins Fan 55]

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I watched and rooted for the Coyotes last night when they played the Kings. They lost 4-2 but it could have been MUCH worse. I am afraid the Coyotes are over matched.

Last nights game was the first one I have not watched as we were having a BBQ for Mother's Day. I want to see a game before I can truly say if they are over matched.

[Brian Fein]

There is far less disparity in NHL than in NBA.  Its just how the game is played.  The worst team in the league can beat the best team in the league given a timely penalty, a lucky bounce, or an off-night by a goaltender.  It happens, frequently.  In the NBA, there are often sub-500 teams that sneak in at the 8-spot who then face the best team in the league.  Of course the likelihood of an upset in that scenario is much less.

I also disagree in the assumption that playoffs = tournament.  It doesn't have to be a pre-bracketed tournament, but in fact the "re-seeding" strategy seems to be the best method, in my opinion.

[wyvernmcd]

You also have to consider the attrition that teams take on during this time. Hockey has a more likely hood of having more injured (or banged up players playing with broken bones) players than the NBA and that plays a part in this as well. Also, some players have a mental block that for whatever reason can't play the regular season but lights up when the playoffs are around and vice versa.

[MaineDolFan]

I'm far from a hockey fan, but this really turns me off about their playoffs.  So far, LAK (the #8 seed) beat the #1 seed 4-1 and the #2 seed 4-0.  Playoff hockey "upsets" are so common that they've been reseeding the NHL playoffs for almost 20 years.

I know there's an argument to be made for how much people love seeing upsets, and that's fine.  But why even bother seeding at all?  Wouldn't it be even more exciting if you had an NHL playoff lottery to determine the playoff pairings?

First:  In hockey - the difference between an 8th seed and a 1 seed could be the difference between 8-10 points, or less than 5 wins or a handful of ties. 

Also, more often than not, 8 seeds are teams fighting for their playoff lives with other teams hovering around those slots (other very talented teams, also around your point range). VAN came in with 111 points and was a mess at the end of the regular season.  Sure, PHX is a #3 seed,which seems like a huge gap in the normal sports world...but they are also a 97 point team, a whopping two points above the Kings.

TWO POINTS.

PNX:  42 wins, 27 losses, 13 overtimes, 97 points, #3 seed
LAK:  40 wins, 27 losses, 15 overtimes, 95 points, #8 seed

VAN - the 111 point "powerhouse?"  51 wins, 22 losses, 9 overtimes.  Not a huge difference over 82 games. 

Your opening statement of "I'm not a hockey fan" kind of explains the rest. The point system is hard for fans to keep up with.

The reason why there has been such a resistence to reseeding over the years is because there hasn't been any actual evidence as to what the reseeding does.  The Kings are not a Cinderella story.  They are a hell of a team, a 40 win, 95 point team.  You don't look at the seed, you look at the team.

[Spider-Dan]

First:  In hockey - the difference between an 8th seed and a 1 seed could be the difference between 8-10 points, or less than 5 wins or a handful of ties. 

When was the last time that an 8 seed and a 1 seed were separated by less than 5 wins?

Also, more often than not, 8 seeds are teams fighting for their playoff lives with other teams hovering around those slots (other very talented teams, also around your point range).

How is this different than the NBA, or any other league with a playoff?

VAN came in with 111 points and was a mess at the end of the regular season.  Sure, PHX is a #3 seed,which seems like a huge gap in the normal sports world...but they are also a 97 point team, a whopping two points above the Kings.

PHX is a #3 seed because they won their division; based strictly on points, they were the 6th best team in their conference.  The NBA had a similar sort of seeding system but fixed it (in 2006) so that the #3 seed is always the team with the third best record.  They did this because otherwise, in non-reseeded brackets, the #1 seed would always face the best non-division winner (which could be the second best team in the league) in the second round.

However, I don't really see this line of reasoning as relevant.  In this year's Stanley Cup playoffs, the top 5 Western teams in points all lost before the conference finals, which has nothing to do with seeding philosophy.  Furthermore, the difference in points between PHX and LAK does not at all explain why LAK easily dispatched two teams with a point advantage in the teens.

The thing that I'm driving at is that using points (or hell, even record) as a method of seeding doesn't seem to be going that well for the NHL.  Maybe it's possible that playoff hockey is just fundamentally random and there will never be that much of a difference between the "best team" and the "worst team"; I don't know.  But when I see a #8 team steamroll a #1 and #2, or see a postseason in which all four lower seeds advance at the same time... that's a problem, in my eyes.

[Brian Fein]

I think there's something to it, but I also think the Kings are the exception this season.  They made some changes at the trade deadline to improve their team (I'm not familiar enough but I've heard analysts discuss this).  Also, there's something about the NHL Playoffs that makes EVERYONE ramp up their game.  The Panthers had lost 10 of 12 against league bottom-dwellers to close the regular season, but were able to hang with the Devils (who are in the conference finals) until the 2nd OT of game 7.  The Playoffs is called the "second season" for a reason.

There is also that element of randomness, like untimely penalties, injuries, etc., but that's why they play 7-game series and not just 1 game.  Penalties in NBA could lead to (at most) 2 points from free throws - out of 100 points scored.  A penalty in hockey gives you a power play which almost 20% of the time gives you a goal.  1 goal when you score on average 3 per game is 33% of scoring.  So, a single penalty in NHL is far 3x more likely to impact the outcome of the game than in NBA.

Bottom line, you can't compare the two.