The Philadelphia Flyers have looked right at home playing in the NHL’s expanded 24-team playoff format, but head coach Alain Vigneault isn’t big on the idea of doing it for more than one season.
With seeding round-robin wins over Presidents’ Trophy-wining Boston and Eastern Conference powerhouse Washington, the Flyers have an opportunity to take the top seed in the conference heading into the post-season’s main draw. Philadelphia takes on Tampa Bay on Saturday with top spot in the East on the line. Vigneault says he has been impressed with the intensity so far in these unique playoffs, but he hopes for a return to a more traditional route to the Stanley Cup final after this season.
“Having been there a couple of times, to win four rounds, to win a best-of-seven series, that’s a big challenge,” Vigneault said during a Friday teleconference. “To add this (preliminary round) to an already 82-game schedule, it would be a real challenge for players, their bodies, their physical health.”
Vigneault said the format that has been in place since the 2013-14 season, which sees the top-three teams in each division along with two wild-card teams from each conference make the cut, is challenging enough without adding eight other teams into the mix.
“To win the big prize (Stanley Cup), to win what everybody wants to win, to win four rounds, it’s the most demanding trophy there is,” Vigneault said. “I don’t want to take anything away from the other sports, but in my estimation it’s the hardest trophy to get.”
The format has been criticized by some for forcing top teams in stronger divisions to face each other in the second round rather than the conference final, but Vigneault said he thinks the battles between division rivals are interesting for fans.
“Personally I like it the way it is,” Vigneault said. “To add another step to it after an 82-game schedule? I don’t know.”
The NHL developed its unique 2020 playoff format, which added a preliminary round to allow more teams a chance to qualify for the main four-round playoff draw, after its regular season was cut short by the COVID-19 pandemic.
As the fourth-best team in the Eastern Conference when the season shut down on March 12, the Flyers were able to bypass the best-of-five playoff qualification series and instead enter a seeding round-robin with the three other top teams in the East.
Philadelphia has made the most of the opportunity to move up in the standings and can now finish no lower than second. Vigneault, however, said getting his players ready is as important as claiming the top seed.
“Like I said prior to the round-robin starting, for us there was that balance between winning and getting our team ready,” Vigneault said. “There’s a couple of players we’d like to get into some games since we’d been out for such a long time, so from that perspective there’s that balance we’ve tried to find, and at the same time win games.”
Like Vigneault, Vegas coach Peter DeBoer also considers himself a traditionalist, but he says he sees some appeal with the 24-team format.
“I think if you had 24 teams make the playoffs every year, a lot more coaches would keep their jobs,” he said with a laugh during a videoconference from the team’s hotel in Edmonton.