The NHL’s Eastern Conference Final ended in five games with the Carolina Hurricanes steamrolling over the Montreal Canadiens.
The Western Conference ended in four games with the Vegas Golden Knights shocking the Colorado Avalanche in a clean sweep.
It was a rather anti-climactic end to the conference portion of the playoffs, and continued what has been a recent trend of the conference finals ending quickly and without long, back-and-forth series.
The NHL’s current playoff format is taking a lot of the blame for that.
But is it really a problem? Or is there something else happening?
Does the NHL have a problem with its playoff format?
Starting with the 2013-14 season, the NHL switched its divisional and conference alignment, going from three, five-team divisions in each conference to two divisions in each conference.
Along with that, they swapped the 1 vs. 8 playoff format (that saw the teams re-seed after each round) to a divisional format that focused more on generating rivalries than getting fair matchups.
It has not been wildly popular.
Players do not like it.
Fans hate it.
The media has increasingly started pointing out how top teams have to play other top teams in the first or second round instead of later in the playoffs. This year, for example, the Central Division bracket put the Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild against one another in the first round. Both teams were among the top-six teams in the NHL during the regular season and had the second-and third-best records in the West.
One of them was guaranteed to lose in the first round. In comparison to the Pacific Division bracket, where at least one lesser team was guaranteed to advance, it seemed problematic.
But while the format has greatly improved the quality of the first round, it has been blamed on the suddenly uninteresting and quick conference finals.