05-06-2021, 03:12 PMDrunkenTeddy Wrote: We did some further checking and our playoff format options are as follows:

1. NHL format, top 3 per div plus 2 wildcards per conference

2. Top team per div for 1/2, 1 plays 8, 2 plays 7, etc. Round 2 is reseeded.

I've been discussing this with a bunch of people and wanted to air my thoughts on it.

- With the NHL format let's look at the great lakes division now, we have 1 division that's packed with strong teams, that division would play itself more in the NHL format and it would mean less chance of seeing the same conference finals over and over again. In the 1-8 format the top team would play the worst in the conference first, then again in the next round. It's very likely in this format that the conference finals will be between two great lakes teams (based on the last few seasons) in this scenario.
- The NHL format allows us to eliminate the break between round 1 and 2 in the playoffs because it doesn't reseed, so we won't need a few days break for people to do a prediction, people have been very vocal against.
- The 1-8 system gives us more unique 1st round playoff matchups, and with reseeding it won't cause a weird advantage to low teams that get lucky in round 1, but that isn't an issue with the other format either unless you want to argue that the disparity between divisions is that great that being 4th in GL gives a massive advantage over being 1st.

I think those are the biggest points, there are some others that have been talked about such as realism and similarity to the NHL that lean a bit in the NHL format's favor, but ultimately I don't think this decision makes or breaks the league either way.

Thanks for taking the time to look into this! From how you summarized it, the second option seems like the perfect fit to me. If we end up with two Great Lakes teams in the finals because they beat everyone else along the way then great, so be it, the best teams made the finals as it should be. And I don't think having a small break to do predictions would be a big issue, we tend to have breaks betwen the rounds for various other reasons anyway, so I doubt this would create much of an extra hold-up if at all.