Fair playoffs never were NHL’s priority

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Not much draws a belly laugh these days, which is why I am so thankful to hear from the folks who are flipping out over a hypothetical 24-team Stanley Cup playoff because such a tournament might be lacking in the integrity department. Remind me where these fine, upstanding, guardians of the hockey galaxy were in …

Not much draws a belly laugh these days, which is why I am so thankful to hear from the folks who are flipping out over a hypothetical 24-team Stanley Cup playoff because such a tournament might be lacking in the integrity department.

Remind me where these fine, upstanding, guardians of the hockey galaxy were in 2018 — when the teams with the two best overall records in the NHL, Nashville and Winnipeg, met in the second round of the playoffs?

Or that same year when, simultaneously, the clubs with the third- and fourth-best overall records, Tampa Bay and Boston, also faced off in the second round?

Or the year before that, which was 2017, when the teams with the two best records in the sport, this time Washington and Pittsburgh, hooked up in Round 2?

Or in 2016, when the … well, you’ve got the picture.

Year after year, brackets produce matchups that reward the weak while punishing the strong, but now, in 2020 while the world has been turned upside down by a pandemic, it might not be fair if teams like the Rangers, Montreal and Chicago are included in an expanded tournament because one of them could actually win?

Pardon me while I guffaw.

Cutting off the playoff field at 16 teams is no more or no less arbitrary than cutting it off at 12, or 20, or 24. Including eight teams per conference rather than going with the top 16 records across the league is arbitrary. Giving the Southeast Division champion home-ice advantage over second-place teams with better records was arbitrary.

And wasn’t it absolutely absurd all those years of the Original Six for the first-place team to play the third-place squad while the second-place team played an inferior fourth-place outfit? Of course it was. Yet they still awarded the Cup and celebrated its winner every year.

Unless and until the NHL develops a plan for reliable and repeated testing, this is all hypothetical. Even if the league can develop that plan, we still may not have hockey until the winter. So arguing over a playoff format for an event that might never see the light of day could be construed as a waste of energy. It is and it isn’t.

Because if the NHL comes back this summer, it will need to make a splash beyond the curiosity factor. It will need the New York, Chicago and Montreal markets. It will need to energize as wide a swatch of the fan base as possible. And it should be clear that even if hockey does return to the ice, 2019-20 ended in March. The Stanley Cup tournament will be a self-contained event.

I know. What happens if the 24th-overall Canadiens actually win? What happened when the Kings, who had the 13th-best record in the NHL in 2011-12, won the Cup that year? Why, the achievement was hailed as living proof of the league’s parity. But a best-of-three play-in where the lesser team might prevail? You mean like in 1975, when the 78-point Maple Leafs ousted the 105-point Kings in the preliminary round and the league somehow did not come to an immediate end?

Sorry, but there is no such thing as picking up from where we left off two, three, four or even five months ago. No one is going to be cheated because no one had won anything. Teams at the top were battling for home ice. The final playoff positions in each conference were in play. Nobody finished in first place because nothing was finished.

And do you know what, if form had held through an uninterrupted season, you would have had the teams with the second- and third-best overall records in the NHL, St. Louis and Colorado, playing in the second round, with the clubs with the best and fourth-best marks, Boston and Tampa Bay, also meeting in Round 2.

Integrity now!

The hard cap is insidious in the way it inevitably pits one class of players against another class of players. The latest manifestation will occur in the NHLPA decision that is expected this week on how to handle the players’ final paycheck that was originally due on April 15.

If the players ultimately vote to accept the checks with the standard 2019-20, 14 percent escrow deduction, then all of the additional escrow resulting from the effect of the pandemic would roll over into next season. If the players instead turn their final paychecks over to the league, that would reduce next year’s escrow burden.

But here’s the twist: Players who retire after this season (or are not in the NHL in 2020-21) would not be responsible for a nickel of carryover, additional escrow. They’re not getting dunned. So it is in their self-interest to be paid with the 14 percent deduction and vote to accept the checks.

Meanwhile, players making their NHL debuts next season would be responsible for the escrow obligation incurred before they came into the league. Of course they have no voice in this decision.

Again, it all remains on the table for the NHL, which has taken an open-ended view of the dynamic. That, we’re told, includes the possibility of either two or four hub sites if play begins in July, or, if the league defers a re-opening until much later in the summer, the potential of playing in home rinks.

Mailbag leftover: I have been asked if Rick Middleton for Ken Hodge wasn’t the worst trade in Rangers history, what was? The answer is it was the worst, but sending Mike Ridley and Kelly Miller to the Capitals for Bobby Carpenter and a second-rounder wasn’t really all that much better.

So, Marcel Dionne as a Ranger or Guy Lafleur?

My vote goes to Tim Horton.

Finally, which did you have first, Eric Lindros as ambassador for the Flyers or Mark Messier in that same role for the Canucks?