Season structure of the NHL
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The National Hockey League (NHL) season is divided into the regular season and the Stanley Cup playoffs. In the regular season, teams play 82 games which determine their standings. The eight top-seeded teams in each conference enter the playoff elimination tournament to determine the Stanley Cup champion.

Regular season

Each team in the NHL plays 82 regular season games, 41 games at home and 41 on the road. In all, 1230 games are played in one regular season.

Beginning in the 2008-2009 season, the NHL regular season reverts to the format used before the 2004-2005 Lockout, where each team plays 6 games (3 home, 3 away) against the other teams in its division (a total of 24 games). Teams will play all other non-divisional teams in their own conference 4 times (2 home, 2 away, 40 total games). The remaining 18 games of the season are inter-conference play, allowing every team in the league to play every other team at least once. Teams will play home-and-home games against 3 non-conference wild-card opponents, and one game against the remaining non-conference teams.¹

The season is typically divided approximately in half by the NHL All-Star Game and its accompanying festivities, during which no regular season games take place.

Two points are awarded for a win (including in overtime or shootout), one point for a loss in overtime or shootout, and no points for a loss in regulation time.

At the end of the regular season, 16 teams, eight from each conference, qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs. The teams are seeded one through eight in each conference. The teams that finish with the most points in each division are crowned the division champions, and are seeded one through three based on their point records. The next five teams with the best records in the conference are seeded four through eight. In the event of a tie in points in the standings, ties are broken using the following tiebreaking procedures:² The higher ranked team is the one with:

1. The fewer number of games played. (Only used during the season, as all teams will have played 82 games once the season is over.)
2. The greater number of games won.
3. The greater number of points earned in games between the tied clubs.
4. The greater differential between goals for and against for the entire regular season.

Stanley Cup playoffs

The Stanley Cup playoffs is an elimination tournament consisting of four rounds of best-of-seven series. The first three rounds determine which team from each conference will advance to the final round, dubbed the Stanley Cup Finals. The winner of that series becomes the NHL and Stanley Cup champion. The most recent Stanley Cup playoffs were the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs.

The first round of the playoffs, or Conference Quarterfinals, consists of four matchups in each conference, based on the seedings (1–8, 2–7, 3–6, and 4–5). In the second round, or Conference Semifinals, the top remaining conference seed plays against the lowest remaining seed, and the other two remaining conference teams pair off (unlike the NBA, for example, where the 1–8 winner always plays the 4–5 winner, regardless of who wins). In the third round, the Conference Finals, the two remaining teams in each conference play each other, with the conference champions proceeding to the Stanley Cup Finals.

For the first three rounds, the higher-seeded team has home-ice advantage (regardless of point record). In the Stanley Cup Finals, it goes to the team with the better regular season record. The team with home-ice advantage hosts games 1, 2, 5 and 7, while the opponent hosts games 3, 4 and 6 (games 5–7 are played "if necessary").

Before the 1993–94 season, the format was completely different. The league was divided into four divisions, and the top four teams in each of the divisions advanced to the playoffs. Also, instead of the top team playing the 8th place team in the conference, the first place team played the fourth place team in each division, and the second place team played the third place team. In the second round, the two winning teams in each division would face each other for the divisional championship. The divisional champions in each conference would play one another in the third round for the right to advance to the Stanley Cup Final. This structure is still used for determining the teams in the playoffs in the American Hockey League.

Criticisms

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The decision radically to change the regular season schedule after the 2004–05 NHL lockout by drastically reducing interconference play has proven controversial. The NHL has received complaints from clubs that are unable to play traditional rivals in the opposite conference in the regular season. Notably, the placement of the Detroit Red Wings and Chicago Blackhawks in the West has distanced these clubs from rivalries with the other Original 6 teams, since they are in the Eastern conference. In general, there are several recurring criticisms of the schedule:

1. The five teams from the opposite conference that a team does not play each year (on a three-year rotating cycle)
2. That home fans have each opposite-conference team visit their arena only once every three years.
3. The frequency of games against the same teams. While many rivalries exist within NHL divisions, some teams face eight games a season against teams that fans might not be particularly eager to see, with several of these games often played in the span of two or three weeks.
4. The unbalanced schedule created by 32 of 82 games being intra-division. It is argued that a good team in a weaker division will have a much easier schedule than if it were in a strong division, making it easier to pile up points and consequently rank higher than they would otherwise deserve.

The future

In November 2007, NHL Board of Governors announced that the format schedule for 2008–2009 season will revert to the format used before the lockout, allowing teams to play at least one game against each team. The format will be as follows:³

• Six games against division teams (three home games, three road games, 24 games total)
• Four games against same conference other teams (two home, two road, 40 games total)
• A total of 18 games against other conference teams (nine home, nine road) with at least one game against each of the 15 teams.

However, it is rumored that another major NHL re-alignment is on the way for 2009 or later. Several alternate formats (for the league and the schedule) have been suggested:

• Re-alignment into two conferences of two divisions each instead of the current three, with the divisions roughly aligned on the basis of standard time zones. It has been further proposed that the top two teams in each division would automatically qualify for the playoffs, with the second place teams being awarded the third and fourth seeds.⁴

See also

• List of most common NHL playoff series
• National Hockey League rivalries
• List of NHL franchise post-season appearance streaks
• List of NHL franchise post-season droughts

References

External links

• – Stanley Cup Playoff Formats