As we near the beginning of the 2023-24 season, PHR is excited to announce the return of a feature to encourage discourse between reader and writer. On Friday mornings, we’ll post a topic of discussion that we think will draw out varied and interesting perspectives from both our commenters and the other staff writers.
For too long, there have only been a couple of outlets for our readers to interact with the PHR staff. Live chats and mailbags offer a chance at some discussion but also run the risk of being too crowded or even outdated by the time the answer arrives. With PHR Chatter, we’re hoping to get weekly talks going on a topic that normally would have to be brought into the spotlight by a reader before even being discussed.
Last week, the topic centered on expansion, the potential benefits and drawbacks of adding to the league’s talent pool, and the merits of certain expansion destinations. Today, with the preseason kicking off (depending on which time zone you’re in), we think it’s worthwhile to open up discussion around one of the most contentious talking points in recent league administrative history: the 82-game schedule.
Is it too long? Too short? Should there be a playoff play-in for teams that finish outside the de facto top eight in their conference? Should preseason schedules be longer or shorter? Most seem to have an opinion about changes to the league’s normal operations one way or another. Let’s open things up here: chime in on any changes you’d like to see the NHL make to their normal schedule… or, if you think things are perfect the way they are, tell us why!
Call me a traditionalist, but I love the 82-game rotation… although I would likely sacrifice some intra-conference matchups to add more intra-division games. Toss out the wild card, no play-in, go back to 1-8 in each conference.
I would like to see the old playoff format again!
Absolutely not more matches anyway! And The playoffschedule is just fine as well. I also think that there has to be a roof of 32 teams. In order to bring anymore in, you have to let some other go out! Otherwise things will be more buisness than sport!
Heck, I’ll be a REAL traditionalist: let’s back the schedule back down to 74 games — last done in 1968. There are too many banged up players, too many serious injuries, and too many meaningless games. A team can play a hundred games just in playing in the Conference Finals.
The other thing I think would help the league immensely is to play half the schedule only within one’s division. Six games against each division rival would heat things up quite a bit.
While it would heat things up, would that possibly be too much? I think back to 2020-21 when the entire schedule was divisional with eight-to-ten matchups between opponents. Six weeks into the year, it felt like many people (players, fans, and media alike) had all had enough of it. Your proposal has some non-divisional matchups in there but if a team is playing 42 in-division games each season, I could see some concerns being raised that there are too many of those.
How about a 164-games regular season where all 32 teams go to playoff? Otherwise it’s just perfect as it is!
Less overall games. Playoffs back to top 8 in each conference. No play in. No expansion. Less preseason exhibition games too. It’s too much effort on the players end already and it takes its toll on a few stars every year.
Keep it at 82 regular season games, no team is going to be totally healthy whether they play 82, 72, 36 or 164 games. Would like to see the first round of the playoffs a best of five to shorten the overall season
This was not a good discussion topic. There’s not much wrong with the schedule and those wrongs (too many games, too many playoff teams) are there for business reasons.
Nothing is going to change in the foreseeable future.