NHL playoffs are the most gruelling test for Oilers to become champions
The NHL playoffs are the most exciting event in North American professional sports. They are also the most gruelling test any team must pass in order to win a championship.
The Edmonton Oilers were one win away from becoming Stanley Cup champions last season. They came back from a 3-1 deficit to force a Game 7, but it ultimately ended in heartbreak.
Sure, it was a magical playoff run, but for the casual hockey fan, understanding how the playoffs work can be a challenging endeavour. So, let’s get a bit into the weeds as to how the NHL playoffs work.
The NHL playoffs and the Edmonton Oilers' path to a Stanley Cup championship
Making it to the NHL playoffs
All 32 teams go through the 82-game regular season with hopes of securing a playoff ticket. There are four divisions in which the top three seeds in each division automatically make it to the postseason.
Then, there are two wildcard spots for both the Eastern and Western Conferences. The wildcards are selected based on the teams with the best records that do not finish in the top three of their respective divisions.
As such, three teams from one division can make it with five teams from another, totalling eight for each conference. Ideally, four teams from each division should make it, but that is not always the case.
Last season, the Edmonton Oilers were the second seed in the Pacific Division. That set up a showdown with the third-place team, the Los Angeles Kings. Because the Oilers were second in the Pacific, they got home-ice advantage against the Kings.
The top seed in the Pacific, the Vancouver Canucks, faced the Nashville Predators, the first wildcard team, in the first round. The team with the best record in the Western Conference, the Dallas Stars, squared off against the second wildcard team, the Vegas Golden Knights.
In short, the team with the best record in its conference faces the weakest team to make the postseason, while the second and third seeds in each division duke it out in what are often the toughest first-round matchups.
Critics have pointed out that this system is impractical since four very good teams are guaranteed to be eliminated in the first round, with two “bad” teams having a chance to advance to the second round.
However, there were no major upsets in the first round last season. So, that point is moot. Perhaps the biggest first-round upset was the number-three Colorado Avalanche defeating the number-two seed Winnipeg Jets in the Western Conference.
In the Eastern Conference, the team with the higher seed took each one of the first-round series. So, no surprises there.
Win four rounds to get the Stanley Cup
While other sports such as the NBA also have four playoff rounds like the NHL, they are not all seven-game series. Major League Baseball has a best-of-three wild card round, a best-of-five divisional round, and a best-of-seven league championship series before the best-of-seven World Series.
As for the NHL, if a team played all seven games in each round, that team could potentially play 28 extra games. Considering the NHL schedule is 82 games, that’s an extra 34 percent of games a team could play. At a minimum, a team must play 16 games to win it all, assuming they sweep every series.
Since 1987, when the NHL moved to seven games in all four rounds, no team has gone completely unbeaten. Even the Oilers’ dynasty of the 80s had a couple of speedbumps along the way.
The grueling postseason schedule is what makes the NHL playoffs the hardest in all professional sports. Other sports like football play just one game per playoff round. In fact, European soccer doesn’t even have a postseason. The league’s champion is declared at the end of the regular season.
So, in last season’s playoffs, the Oilers played five games against the Kings, seven against the Canucks, six against the Dallas Stars, and seven against the Florida Panthers. That was a total of 25 postseason games.
This point underscores why depth is so important in the playoffs. Teams deal with injuries and fatigue, making depth critical. Moreover, goaltenders pay a huge price in the playoffs. Think of the Panthers’ Sergei Bobrovsky last season. He was so taxed during the playoffs that fans were concerned about his apparent weight loss due to dehydration.
Overall, the NHL playoffs are the single most challenging postseason of any sport, especially considering the physical nature of hockey. Players are true beasts when going through a gauntlet of NHL playoff hockey.
Overtime completely changes in the playoffs
In an earlier piece, I touched on the regular-season overtime rules. However, things drastically change in the postseason.
During the regular season, teams play 3-on-3 for five minutes. If there is no winner, the game is decided via a shootout. That changes in the postseason.
In the playoffs, teams play 5-on-5 for 20 minutes per overtime period. Teams must play until someone scores a “golden” or “sudden death” goal. Basically, NHL overtime hockey is “next goal wins.”
Some playoff games go into double and triple overtime. The modern record for the longest playoff is a five-OT matchup between the Philadelphia Flyers and Pittsburgh Penguins in 2000.
The longest overtime playoff game the Edmonton Oilers have played was in 1999 when the Dallas Stars defeated the Oilers 3-2 in Game 4 of the first round. The Stars swept the Oilers in that series.
Before that, the Oilers played a 3OT game versus the Boston Bruins in 1990. The Oilers outlasted the Bruins 3-2 in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. I recall watching that game when I was a kid. The game had gone off for so long, that the power went out at the old Boston Garden. The players sat on the bench waiting for the crew to get the power back.
There’s a scene of Bruins’ goalie Andy Moog sitting on the ice in the dark like he was a kid sent to the corner for a timeout. When play resumed, Petr Klima scored the winner. The Oilers, led by Mark Messier, won their fifth and final cup with the core (minus Wayne Gretzky) that dominated the 1980s.
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In conclusion, playoff hockey is the most exciting event of any sport. I’m a baseball fan, too, and I can attest to memorable World Series. But that’s just one event. The NHL playoffs are two months of unique moments that last a lifetime.
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