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Boston Bruins' Stanley Cup Quest More Difficult With Proposed Playoffs - The Hockey Writers

Boston Bruins' Stanley Cup Quest More Difficult With Proposed Playoffs - The Hockey Writers

Boston Bruins' Stanley Cup Quest More Difficult With Proposed Playoffs - The Hockey Writers
May 24, 2020 1 min, 58 secs

While the timeline to close out the season remains undecided, the playoff format being discussed would create a postseason unlike anything the league has ever seen.

According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the playoff structure is expected to include an additional best-of-five play-in round in which teams that had very little chance of making the playoffs — like the 12th-seeded Montreal Canadiens in the East — have a chance to earn a spot in the 16-team bracket.

The top four seeds in each conference would receive a bye to the traditional 16-team, best-of-seven series bracket, leaving the 5-12 seeds to battle it out in the play-in round.

As it stands, the Eastern Conference playoff would look like this:.

The winners of the play-in round will advance to face the teams receiving a bye in a traditional bracket without re-seeding.

Here’s how the proposed format could affect the Bruins:.

As the top seed in the Eastern Conference, the Bruins wouldn’t participate in the play-in round.

This means that the Bruins, who built an eight-point lead over their closest competitors (Tampa Bay) in the Eastern Conference over the course of 70 games, could lose their number one seed as a result of three games.

On top of that, even if the Bruins did re-earn their number one seed, there’s no guarantee that they’d face the weakest opponent remaining.

Since the 16-team bracket taking place after the play-in round would proceed without re-seeding, the top seed would play the winner of the eight/nine seed match-up between the Maple Leafs and the Blue Jackets, regardless of how the other series’ go.

5 Pittsburgh in the play-in round, the top-seeded team wouldn’t be shifted to take on the weakest opponent.

As a result of this, there could be a scenario where the fourth-seeded team (the one that performs the worst in the round-robin) could match-up with the 12th-seeded team while the top-seeded team has to play the eight-seed.

The proposed format threatens the advantages that the Bruins earned during the regular season.

As a result, Bruins head coach Bruce Cassidy has already expressed his dislike for the proposed format:.

The Bruins were the top team in the NHL by a fair margin when the league was suspended.

The Bruins earned that top seed over the course of 70 games, and yet it could be lost as a result of three.

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