No changes coming to NHL playoff format according to Bettman

Pittsburgh Penguins captain Sidney Crosby suggested it might be time to change the way the league runs its playoffs, and he wasn’t suitable about it when asked on February 5th 

"I like one to eight," Crosby said while discussing how each conference’s first-place team used to be pitted against its last-place team. 

"The regular season, as difficult as it is, teams should be rewarded,” the Penguins captain continued. 

“I guess that's probably the best way that you should be rewarded,” Crosby added. “I like that version a little bit better."

Under the current system, the top three seeds in each division advance to the playoffs while each conference has two wild card additions for a total of sixteen teams per a Wikipedia explanation. 

In the first round of this division-based system, the top-ranked team in each conference will play against the lowest-ranked wildcard team while the second-highest-ranking team in each conference will play against the second-lowest wildcard. 

The second and third-placed teams in each division play against each other to see who advances. While this might make for some interest in playoff hockey, it's not how its always been done. 

From 1994 up until the 2013-2014 season, the NHL playoffs were in this glorious period where the Stanley Cup Playoffs were based on the one-to-eight conference system, with both fans and players loving the format.

Tweaking today’s playoff format to replicate the one-to-eight system isn’t as easy as it sounds though, or at least commissioner Gary Bettman doesn’t think so. 

"The debate about 1-versus-8, it's not just that,” Bettman told reporters before the league's annual All-Star game. 

“You have to look at changes to the wild card and start looking at the matchups in terms of how many times teams play each other," the NHL commissioner continued.  

"If you're having conference-based playoffs, it's not as simple as saying, 'I'd like one-versus-eight versus what we have,’" Bettman added.

Apparently, Bettman believes that once you start to change things it can lead to “a whole host of other issues that have to be addressed."

So it appears as if we’re unlikely to see the return of the one to eight conference-based playoff system in the NHL anytime soon. We probably won’t even see the current system tweaked to better serve the players, even if Bettman does "value" their input. 

"We do value the input from the players," Bettman told reports in reference to Crosby's comments. "It's something we get through the competition committee and it's something that we get on an informal basis when players come to New York."

Unfortunately, it doesn't look like he values them enough to make the changes needed for the league’s playoff system. But that shouldn’t mean we can’t stop complaining about it…