Which playoff format is better: The current one with the top three team in each division and two wildcard spots, or the previous one with the teams ranked one to eight in each Conference? Before you answer, let’s look at the results.

Pete Blackburn

@PeteBlackburn

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Over the last five years, more than half of the NHL's conference finals have ended in five games or fewer. None have gone seven games. Dark days for Gary's format

1:58 AM · May 30, 2026

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Pete tweeted this after Carolina eliminated Montreal in five games. Vegas swept Colorado in four. The conference finals weren’t that close. But were they close when it was 1 v. 8 format? No, in fact the series were much shorter on average.

From 2006-2013 we have the 1 v. 8 and 16 CF series.

Eleven of 16 were 4-5 game series (68.7%), three needed six games (18.8%) and two went seven games (12.5%).
Compare that to the current model (2014 to now) and we’ve had 26 CF series.

Nine of 26 went 4-5 games (34.6%), ten finished in six games (38.5%) and seven went the distance (26.9%).

Based on Pete’s complaint, the current model has been significantly more competitive overall, if you are using series length as the baseline.

Now let’s take a deeper look at the first three rounds in the salary cap era.

In every season the Conference Final had at least one series go four or five games and three years (out of eight) both were four or five games. The first round was the best round, as far as series going longer, with 23 going 4-5 games and 41 needing 6-7 games. In the second round it was split evenly with 16 needing 4-5 and 16 needing 6-7.

Here is the current model.

The Conference Finals have been much more competitive with 17 of 26 needing 6-7 games. The second round had 16 series go 4-5 games and 36 go 6-7, while the first round was also longer with 38 going 4-5 games and 66 needing 6-7 games.

Let’s now to do a direct comparison to the overall % of series that needed, four, five, six or seven games.

YEARS

1st RND

2nd........

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