NHL has 'best playoff first round in any sport.' But at what cost?
NHL has 'best playoff first round in any sport.' But at what cost?
Kevin Skiver, USA TODAY NETWORK Fri, May 1, 2026 at 9:15 PM UTC
0
The Stanley Cup playoffs are well underway, with what has been an exciting first round.
There's been a lot of very good hockey so far. And while the first round of the NHL playoffs promises strong matchups and divisional showdowns, it raises the question: Is it too much of an early glut, and do the later rounds suffer under the current playoff format?
The postseason in the NHL is structured as follows:
The division winner with the best record plays the second wild card team
The division winner with the second-best record plays the first wild card team
The second- and third-place finishers from both divisions play each other in the first round
This structure has been in place since 2014, and commissioner Gary Bettman has dug his heels in on it time and time again.
REQUIRED READING: Jack Adams Award finalists announced. Favorite and snub for best coach in NHL
"More than comfortable," Bettman told reporters last month with regards to the format. "It gives us a sensational first round. Probably the best playoff first round in any sport. We get more games and longer series as a result of the format. And you can always pick at certain situations in any given year and say, 'Well, I'd like it to be different that year.' But if you look at the body of work that our playoffs represent over time, what we have now works extraordinarily well."
It's true, to a degree. The first round of the Stanley Cup playoffs are by and large more interesting than, say, the NBA's opening round where many series can be picked to go four or five games (2026 has proven to be a bad example of that). But they also give us matchups that could have been conference finals in the early going. The Wild and Stars are divisional foes who could have seen each other two rounds down the line, whereas the same could be said for the Lightning and Canadiens. These are teams with real animosity who would give compelling storylines playing for a chance at the Cup.
Instead, we see them get eliminated, and the Central and Atlantic divisions are punished for having arms races all season while the Pacific didn't have a single team over 100 points and the Metro had one.
For contrast, here's a look at how these playoffs would have looked under the NBA's current 1-8 format.
2026 Stanley Cup playoffs in 1-8 formatEastern Conference -
(1) Carolina Hurricanes vs (8) Philadelphia Flyers
(2) Buffalo Sabres vs (7) Pittsburgh Penguins
(3) Tampa Bay Lightning vs (6) Ottawa Senators
(4) Montreal Canadiens vs (5) Boston Bruins
Western Conference -
(1) Colorado Avalanche vs (8) Los Angeles Kings
(2) Dallas Stars vs (7) Anaheim Ducks
(3) Minnesota Wild vs (6) Utah Mammoth
(4) Vegas Golden Knights vs (5) Edmonton Oilers
It may not have the juggernaut matchups of Stars-Wild or the Battle of Pennsylvania of Penguins-Flyers, but it does properly reward teams who found themselves in regular season dogfights while still having interesting series (the Nos. 4 and 5 matchups in both conferences are particularly compelling). Furthermore, it still creates interesting permutations of second-round matchups.
Before the 2013 season, the NHL had a three-division structure that had the Northeast, Southeast and Atlantic in the East and the Northwest, Central and Pacific in the West. That playoff format had re-seeding, but also wasn't tenable due to imminent expansion to 32 teams and the necessity to cut travel.
This is not about protecting certain teams or protecting certain writers' egos (has a certain writer had a horrible time picking the first round? Yes. Is his Stanley Cup pick already eliminated in the first round? Also yes). Instead, it's about creating a postseason that survives the first round. As good as these series are, their protracted and physical nature decimates rosters heading into Round 2, and the matchups suffer.
Advertisement
By the conference finals, imbalances are clear. In 2025, both series finished in five games. In 2024, they finished in six. 2023 saw a sweep and a six-game series. 2022 was the same. There hasn't been a seven-game conference final since 2018.
Furthermore, from a ruthless business perspective, which is the only thing that will change anything, losing big players and names in the first round does have an effect on interest as the playoffs go on. A playoff structure shouldn't be reverse engineered around getting the Bruins to the Stanley Cup Finals, but it should consider that Bruins-Canadiens is a more interesting Eastern Conference Finals matchup than it is to see in Round 1, and locking fans from that short of one of those teams winning the Atlantic (which can still result in a first round matchup if the wild card picture falls right) is myopic decision making.
Rivalries can't be forced
At the crux of the issue lies a simple truth: Rivalries in sports can't be forced. They come from history, regionality and familiarity, with at least two of the three usually being involved.
Hockey west of Colorado in the United States has been around for some time, but it's expanding rapidly. With the advent of the Golden Knights in Las Vegas and the Kraken in Seattle, along with a newly tapped fan base in Utah with the Mammoth moving from Arizona, these are teams looking to establish footprints.
The vitriol between the Canadiens, Bruins and Maple Leafs comes from being three Original Six teams creating a Bermuda Triangle of hatred in the Northeast. The Flames and Oilers have nursed a dragon egg of hatred since meeting each other for the first Battle of Alberta in 1980 that was nourished by being two of the league's premier teams atop the Campbell Conference in the latter half of the 1980s. They weren't mashed together like action figures in a commissioner's room. It took time.
That's how it has to happen now. The Stars and Avalanche don't harbor contempt for each other because of their 2025 first round matchup. It dates to the '90s when they were fighting for supremacy in the West. The Stars and Wild have heaps of baggage that dates to the Minnesota North Stars moving to Dallas. This series is a blip cosmically, not the defining aspect of it.
That's what gets lost in this conversation. The first round will always be intense. It will always be passionate. But seeding should also be rewarding for the teams who fought to get there. If a first-round series can be predicted since November like Wild-Stars was, that's a systemic issue. If the reward for teams who killed each other in the Atlantic Division for 82 games is to see each other for another minimum of four to do it again, that's a systemic issue.
These rivalries aren't bolstered by teams being mashed together. If the Red Wings and Avalanche played each other in the first round every year in the 1990s, that rivalry wouldn't be revered as it is today. It would just be a freak occurrence. Oilers-Kings isn't treated as some kind of cherished matchup. It's a curiosity at best.
The expansion factor
Something to consider when thinking about possible realignment options is that the NHL isn't content at 32 teams. Bettman has already discussed further expansion multiple times.
While the NHL having the most teams among the major North American leagues sounds crazy at first blush, the thought is it has more untapped markets due to how many teams it shares with Canada and the expansion into the West and South. That creates a wildly unstable environment when talking about realignment.
The path of least resistance for the NHL, frankly, is a straight 1-8 seeding. Killing conferences and doing 1-16 would be unique but would open up a Pandora's Box of logistical matchup problems with travel, while contracting the playoffs is out of the question (no league is interested in going backward and losing that revenue). The NBA play-in has also created more problems than solutions, and the NHL playoffs really don't need more games than they already have.
Sometimes, simple is better. Leagues as a whole seem to have forgotten that in their never-ending quest to invent a wheel that rolls better. The NHL is in the best position to remind them, particularly as the league enters another era of change.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: Stanley Cup playoffs need rework, as good teams get eliminated early
Source: “AOL Sports”
