Why limit the NHL playoffs to just the mediocre and above-average?

Ross McKeon of Yahoo Sports apparently feels it’s unfair for so many teams to be excluded just because they aren’t able to reach the level of mediocrity necessary to make the NHL playoffs.

The NHL has 30 team, and 16 of them make the playoffs. This means, by definition, that at least 2 of these teams are at best average.

“Shouldn’t a Toronto Maple Leafs team that goes 41-33-8 in 2005-06 be in the playoffs?”

He’s got a point - if you have to win more games than you lose just to make the playoffs then we’re going to exclude a lot of teams that are almost average! Is that how we want sports to be? Do we really want teams to have to win games just to make the playoffs?

McKean, who has apparently followed hockey long enough to recall the old 90-and-you’re-in rule, points out that in 2006 “Out west, Vancouver (42-32-8) and Los Angeles (42-35-5) had 92 and 89 points, respectively, and failed to qualify.”

These teams won 2 more games than they lost and they still didn’t make the playoffs! What is the matter with NHL management?

Fortunately McKeon has a solution:

“So maybe it could go something like this: Ten teams from each conference qualify for the postseason, but the six teams with the most regular-season points in each conference draw an opening-round bye. Opening-round conference matchups would pair the No. 7 vs. No. 10 and No. 8 vs. No. 9 in best-of-five “qualifying-round” series.”

This goes on for another 9 paragraphs.

Here’s an idea Ross - what if you pretend the first 82 games these teams play against each other is the first round of the playoffs…