Faceoff Factor

Free pass to third place

Mike Wilson | National Hockey League

Feb 22, 07:36 AM | Hype this story!

With the regular season nearing an end in a little more than a month, teams are fighting for playoff positioning. As usual, the Eastern Conference is in a tight race as only six points separate the sixth spot from the twelfth spot.

However, running up through the standings, one might notice a low-point team ranking among the top three. This would be the slot reserved for the final division winning team. Is that fair? This topic isn’t new to many, including some here at Faceoff Factor. .

It is currently the Southeastern Division which falls behind the other two, and, if the top three spots weren’t reserved for the division winners, the current leader, the Carolina Hurricanes, wouldn’t even make the final eight teams still standing in the Eastern Conference at season’s end.

Should the top three spots be reserved for the divisional champions?

If not, this would allow more talented teams to rightly enter the playoffs. So, the “bubble” teams who are on the outside looking in, such as the Boston Bruins and the Philadelphia Flyers, would feel more comfortable knowing there would be at least one more playoff spot available at the end of the season.

Even the Southeastern Division-leading Hurricanes would be battling for a final spot if the current system were to be modified.

With their 67 points, Carolina would have just enough to make the eight spot. However, should the Bruins or the Flyers win their next games and obtain 68 points, only the 67-point New York Islanders would fall and still one of them will still be left out.

Would it be unfair to divisions, like this year’s Southeastern, to remove the automatic top three slots reserved for the divisional champions?

There aren’t any teams in the Southeast, at least this season, which would fit in among the top three Eastern Conference leaders. Carolina and Washington keep fighting for the top spot, which has recently been distanced by Carolina, but neither stands out as a big conference threat.

Certainly, there would be objections made by the five teams in the Southeast for not ensuring their leader a playoff spot, but teams who actually worked hard to obtain the necessary point totals to compete in the playoffs would feel that justice would be served.

Another reason why not to save the top three seeds for divisional champions is if, in the case of Carolina, they wouldn’t match up to the sixth team and it would seem almost like a free first round for whoever held the six spot.

Solution?

The National Hockey League certainly can’t exclude certain divisions from the playoffs. No one would deny them that. They want to allow the division winning teams into the playoffs automatically. That’s fine. But what if they were ranked accordingly?

So if Carolina finishes by winning the Southeast with less points than any other team in the playoffs, at least rank them eighth. This way, the teams finishing nine and ten will know that the team that automatically receives that spot they lost will end up playing the same, more dominant top seed they would have played.

It’s always a big topic around this time during the season. When two of the seven teams that don’t make the cut only miss it by one point and look to see the third seed with three less points their own total, they become outraged. Who is to blame them?

On the other hand, winning the Southeast division still shouldn’t be overlooked entirely. Ovechkin, Kovalchuk, Jokinen, and Lecavalier are just naming a few of Carolina’s skilled opposition. Clearly no easy task either.

Who’s right? If only both could sides could win. Everybody would be happy.

But, then again, this is the NHL, and the breaks are tough. For now, though it might only happen once every few years, a team will be able to make the playoffs with fewer points than a team who finishes ninth…fair or not.