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Five factors determine the National Hockey League (NHL) playoff schedule: regular season record, outcome of each playoff round, geographic location, venue availability, and television requests.

Regular Season Record

The NHL consists of thirty teams that are divided into two conferences. Within each conference, there are fifteen teams that are further divided into three divisions. Each of the three division winners are guaranteed playoff spots. Five more teams in each conference are granted playoff spots based on total points accumulated during the regular season.

Playoff positions are determined first by the division winners. The division winner with the most points is ranked first, followed by the division winner with the second most points. The division winner with the third most point receives the third playoff seed. The fourth through eight teams in the conference are seeded by total points. Even if a division winner has fewer points than a non-division winner, they still receive a higher ranking for winning their division.

The scheduling of the first round of the playoffs is as follows. The number one seed (division winner with the most points) faces the number eight seed. The number two seed (division winner with the second most points) faces the number seven seed. Seed 3 plays seed 6 and seed 4 is scheduled to play seed 5.

Outcome of each playoff round

After the first round, four teams in each conference move on to the second round. Unlike the NBA, the NHL re-seeds the teams for the second round match ups. This means the team in the second round ranked highest will meet the team ranked lowest. The other two teams meet in the other second round match up.

If seeds 2, 4, 6 and 8 move into the second round, then seed 2 plays seed 8 and seeds 4 and 6 play in the other series.

Geographic location

Much of the scheduling in the playoffs is contingent on where the games are being played. If you live on the west coast, chances are you'll be finishing a meeting when the puck is dropped to start an east coast game. Most, if not games begin at the same time in their respective time zones.

The NHL prefers for each series to play games on every other day. Because of travel issues, some series may skip a day to allow teams to recuperate from traveling long distances. This is particularly true in the Conference and Stanley Cup Finals. Last year, Anaheim and Ottawa had to travel across the continent and there was an extra travel day put in between games 2 and 3.

Venue availability

In a perfect world, The NHL would like for each conference to hold their playoff games on the same day. But because many of the teams share venues with their NBA counterparts, scheduling conflicts occur between the two leagues. Detroit is the one city that seems to have the most scheduling conflicts, as both their NBA and NHL teams perennially make it out of the first round of the playoffs. New York would also be a problem if the city had a NBA franchise.

Television requests

If Washington wins game seven against Philadelphia tomorrow night, you can bet the farm that NBC will be clamoring for a featured game between the Capitals and the Pittsburgh Capitals. The NHL will happily oblige since they want exposure for their budding young super stars Alexi Ovechin and Sidney Crosby. Ratings, above all, determine the scheduling of high profile NHL playoff games.

The regular season and the subsequent outcome of each playoff series determine who will be scheduled to play in the NHL playoffs. Geographic location, venue availability and television requests dictate when the games will be played.

Learn more about this author, Keith Bailey.
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