Should the VHLM have an 8 team playoff?

[Erik Summers 451]

In the 3 seasons since the VHL expanded to 11 teams and an 8 team playoff, we have seen 4 teams make the playoffs with losing records. In those 4 series, the teams with a losing record have won a total of 1 game. This means that the number 1 seed already functionally has a bye. So what about the 2v7 seed game? S68 was the first time we saw the 7 seed win more than one game against the 2 seed. I don't see this as a big threat to the 2 seed and we would like average less than 1 in 10 7 seeds advancing to the second round.

 

I think we would have a more exciting, condensed playoff, if we returned to a 6 game playoff in the VHLM. Here is my proposed format.

 

Round 1:

3 Seed Vs 6 Seed - 5 Game Series

4 Seed Vs 5 Seed - 5 Game Series

 

Round 2:

1 Seed Vs. Lowest Remaining Seed - 7 Game Series

2 Seed Vs. Highest Remaining Seed - 7 Game Series

 

Round 3:

Championship - 7 Game Series

 

I think it is concise, but it also provides tons of competitive hockey while giving teams an incentive to play for top seeding in the regular season while cutting out series that aren't competitive. That's my idea, and I don't have any knowledge of why the VHLM went to a 8 team playoff, so maybe this has already been debated, but I couldn't find the thread.

[Gustav 6,139]

Agreed 100%. I understand the rationale behind having an 8-team playoff--it keeps more players engaged for longer--but there's no competition. You almost have to make a conscious effort to not make the playoffs.

 

Besides, if someone goes inactive because they're not directly involved in the sims for the last couple weeks or so, you'd be hard-pressed to argue that they're the type of member who would end up sticking around long-term anyway.

[CowboyinAmerica 2,731]

I fully agree as well. It wasn't my favorite having just gone through it, and I think it'd encourage more player movement as well with more defined buyers and sellers (which I personally think is a good thing).

[Banackock 7,707]

Hello @Erik Summers

 

During my tenure as VHLM commissioner, I've made it my goal to make it bigger and better than it's ever been before. Myself and @diamond_ace have brought the league numerous changes to the rulebook, league structure, expansion, the World Juniors and officially last season, the Commissioners Cup. I'm likely missing some stuff too. We do our best to make the right choices, even if sometimes it isn't the most popular decision or thought at the time for our lovely GM's (who cares what they think, am I right? Yes). Furthering, it's been our mission to make the VHLM as best as it can be for every member including yourself. It's a passion of ours to succeed for you in this matter. The fact you wrote this, of course, we appreciate the time and effort it took. We also appreciate that you're willing to share your thoughts on how you feel you/we can improve the VHLM. I really like to see respectful, constructive insight and suggestions towards the VHLM with desire to improve it some more. 

 

What you bring up is interesting and definitely is something that hasn't been an uncommon thought or spoken about subject. I've seen it pop up a few times and is has surely been a small portion of what myself and diamond have discussed. Currently, we're discussing the matter but until the time that an official decision is made (which we will do as quik as possible), some more discussion from others would be excellent.

 

Oh, remember those guys who love when I ping them?  @VHLM GM  Yo whattup 

 

Sincerely,

Not A Good VHLM Commissioner

@VHLM Commissioner

 

 

 

 

 

[Erik Summers 451]

@Banackock

Thanks for the reply! I really don't think it is hurting anything to have the 8 team playoff, and I think it would be great to see the league grow into it. Consistency alone might be a good enough reason to keep it at eight teams, but I just thought it was strange that teams with really pretty bad regular season records got a shot at playing spoiler to the top seeded teams.

 

Thank you for taking the time to consider my idea! I'm having a lot of fun in the league and that starts at the top.

[Berocka 2,210]

I think there could be a way you keep an 8 team finals and still make it more competitive, giving the 7th and 8th seeds more of a chance. It is the finals system that is used in Australia.

 

 

The top 4 play each other first in a qualifying final, the winners get a bye and the losers face the winners of the bottom 4 seeds. So the people who finish in the top 4 essentially get a second chance, meaning that people will fight to get a higher spot in the playoffs.

 

Let me know what you think @Erik Summers and @Banackock 

[Fire Tortorella 2,653]

So if you're just going to give the first and second overall teams a bye, why not keep it as it is and at least give 2 more teams another week-ish of games? These teams are still going to sell if it makes sense for them since they're true contenders.

[Erik Summers 451]

6 minutes ago, Berocka said:

 

 

 

 

That is the ugliest bracket I have ever seen. I'm not saying that it is inherently bad but... man. It starts out as double elimination and then changes halfway through? I used to be really into brackets and I have never seen one set up that that. Really interesting.

[Nykonax 1,550]

24 minutes ago, Banackock said:

During my tenure as VHLM commissioner, I've made it my goal to make it bigger and better than it's ever been before. Myself and @diamond_ace have brought the league numerous changes to the rulebook, league structure, expansion, the World Juniors and officially last season, the Commissioners Cup. I'm likely missing some stuff too.

weird flex but ok

[Banackock 7,707]

3 minutes ago, Nykonax said:

weird flex but ok

 

[Erik Summers 451]

9 minutes ago, flyersfan1453 said:

So if you're just going to give the first and second overall teams a bye, why not keep it as it is and at least give 2 more teams another week-ish of games? These teams are still going to sell if it makes sense for them since they're true contenders.

I think you could make the argument that a team with a losing record in the regular season doesn't deserve a chance to compete in the off-season. If a 7 or 8 seed is never going to win, then having the games is just for show, and if they do win, is that going to be an incredible feel good moment or feel like a fluke that cheated the top seeded team out of their playoff hopes? I feel like it would be a latter, but that might just be me.

[Mr_Hatter 1,603]

Personally I don't see why it helps to change it to a 6 team playoff? Due to the manner in which playoffs are simmed it doesn't make it functionally any more difficult to add the extra series. And if the first seed wins so often, so what? There's a reason they did well in regular season, but they should still have to play through. Personally, more games are always fun, and I don't feel that this would help anything. 

 

Furthermore, I dislike the idea that only 6 of 11 teams make playoffs. Regardless of how competitive the games are. I don't feel that borderline half the teams should sit out. They should have a chance too, and more importantly,  keep the players and GMs engaged in the season. If the VHLM is about player engagement, why would we cut down on the amount of games occurring? Especially when you consider teams that were on poor regular season teams are likely (though not guaranteed) to have less positive interaction over the course of the season due to less active players and poor performance in general. So why not let them participate in playoffs?

 

Look back to NCAA when UMBC upset Virginia. Nobody thought it could happen but when it did it was one of the greatest sporting upsets of all time. If anything that creates a great potential for something crazy to happen. 

 

Regardless of my personal opinion on the change, thanks for making it I think the discussion is really good to have, and it's a position that should be heard.  I'm just not quite sure I understand or agree with the perceived benefit.

[Erik Summers 451]

4 minutes ago, Mr_Hatter said:

Furthermore, I dislike the idea that only 6 of 11 teams make playoffs. Regardless of how competitive the games are. I don't feel that borderline half the teams should sit out. They should have a chance too, and more importantly,  keep the players and GMs engaged in the season. If the VHLM is about player engagement, why would we cut down on the amount of games occurring? Especially when you consider teams that were on poor regular season teams are likely (though not guaranteed) to have less positive interaction over the course of the season due to less active players and poor performance in general. So why not let them participate in playoffs?

 

Honestly, this is a really good point that I hadn't considered. Player engagement is probably the single most important thing in the VHLM and if having more players in the playoffs helps that, then I completely see it as valid to have more teams.

[Gustav 6,139]

5 minutes ago, Mr_Hatter said:

perceived benefit

The benefit to me is, in short, it makes things actually interesting in terms of who's in and who isn't. I've been a GM for three seasons--two of those seasons, I've told my players with absolute confidence that we'd make the playoffs, before we even played a single game. And I could say this without even being the slightest bit cocky, because there's no way we weren't making the playoffs unless we decided to tank.

 

So what's the point of even having a regular season, really, if all we're doing is taking who we already know is in and taking over a month to determine who's playing who? In S65, my rookie season, 5 out of 8 teams made it--the top 3, plus a one-game wild-card round between 4 and 5--and guess what, 6 out of 8 teams were trying to make a run at it. It was actually exciting to watch the standings, to see who was beating who, to see who was in and who wasn't. I'd argue that the possibility of a) being an active player on a team where there were other active players, and b) having the danger of not making the playoffs kept me a good deal more engaged than I would have been otherwise if @Sonnet had just popped in at the beginning of the season and told us that there simply wasn't a chance that we wouldn't be in.

 

And get this--THESE DAYS I DON'T EVEN LOOK AT THE STANDINGS because I know we'll be in if I'm building the team to win games. And I'd imagine many players are the same way. I had no idea the Hounds were in 4th place until someone asked me who we'd be playing when the season ended and I went and looked it all over.

 

So, yes, the playoffs get more players more games, but that comes at the expense of making the regular season a good deal more boring than it needs to be. Is that what we want?

[Rayzor_7 741]

My opinion

 

Go to six teams. Allow first to choose their opponent out of the winner of 3v6 and 4v5 (remember, you don't always want the worse team if they've done really well against you)

 

Or if we keep 8 them let teams 1, 2 and 3 pick (in order) their opponents from places 5-8.

 

Also

Introduce a 5 team weighted lotto for picks 1, 2 and 3.

 

 

[Berocka 2,210]

38 minutes ago, Erik Summers said:

 

That is the ugliest bracket I have ever seen. I'm not saying that it is inherently bad but... man. It starts out as double elimination and then changes halfway through? I used to be really into brackets and I have never seen one set up that that. Really interesting.

Yeah it's hard to follow but essentially 1-4 get a second chance. I like it mainly that all the teams are closer when they play 6v7 and 5v8 could be tight games that keep the players more interested than 1v8 where 8th place know they don't have a chance.

 

I also think that due to waivers a team can grow a lot during the season imagine if a team with a couple of good players grabs 8 waivers that earn max TPE per week. By finals they could be a contender even though they are placed 7th or 8th.

 

I am just here to post ideas not to make decisions though.

[diamond_ace 3,106]

I think that objectively, the 6 team playoff makes more sense from a competition standpoint. Good teams in, bad teams out. However, I don't want to do a 6 team playoff, because the VHLM is only secondarily a competition. It is primarily a retention vehicle. Sure "most" actives will get traded off these teams and sent to the good teams, but a lot of them, if they're trying to be good the following year, will hang onto the slower paced actives since they'll be at/near cap when it's relevant. These are the type of players that could push a below average team into 7th or 8th, and if we care more about retaining them as members than we do about competition which is the entire point of the VHLM and if GMs don't do this they are not properly doing their jobs then we should want to keep them entertained for longer. Going to a 6 team playoff flies directly in the face of the notion that we're trying to be retention first, competition second.

[Erik Summers 451]

16 minutes ago, diamond_ace said:

I think that objectively, the 6 team playoff makes more sense from a competition standpoint. Good teams in, bad teams out. However, I don't want to do a 6 team playoff, because the VHLM is only secondarily a competition. It is primarily a retention vehicle. Sure "most" actives will get traded off these teams and sent to the good teams, but a lot of them, if they're trying to be good the following year, will hang onto the slower paced actives since they'll be at/near cap when it's relevant. These are the type of players that could push a below average team into 7th or 8th, and if we care more about retaining them as members than we do about competition which is the entire point of the VHLM and if GMs don't do this they are not properly doing their jobs then we should want to keep them entertained for longer. Going to a 6 team playoff flies directly in the face of the notion that we're trying to be retention first, competition second.

 

Alright, you've convinced me, and I'm the one who wrote the suggestion, lol. As a new player, I was looking at it purely from the competition standpoint, and I still think my points a valid from that viewpoint. However, I agree with you completely that isn't the primary purpose of the VLHM. I really appreciate the look you guys gave me into the view of the league from management's perspective.

[Gustav 6,139]

I mean, to me:

 

Competition = entertainment = engagement = retention

 

But that's just my opinion, of course.

[diamond_ace 3,106]

4 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

I mean, to me:

 

Competition = entertainment = engagement = retention

 

But that's just my opinion, of course.

You're also the type of person where that would never be an issue, since you're super active. No non-competing team will hang onto you for next year, since you'd be up in the bigs by then. However, if you take someone at say, stevo's level of active (I use him as an example because he's been around for a while and largely knows what he's about here) then a team who isn't going anywhere might not sell him off, or might even go out of their way to acquire him, so that he can help them the following season. If this is a person at about stevo's activity level, but new, is it not better to give that person some playoffs, in order to retain them?

[Gustav 6,139]

5 minutes ago, diamond_ace said:

You're also the type of person where that would never be an issue, since you're super active. No non-competing team will hang onto you for next year, since you'd be up in the bigs by then. However, if you take someone at say, stevo's level of active (I use him as an example because he's been around for a while and largely knows what he's about here) then a team who isn't going anywhere might not sell him off, or might even go out of their way to acquire him, so that he can help them the following season. If this is a person at about stevo's activity level, but new, is it not better to give that person some playoffs, in order to retain them?

I still have to say, I don't really understand why adding some competition (making the longer part of the season more exciting) at the cost of a smaller playoff pool (which might make things less interesting for some people who have already stuck around for the whole season) is a bad thing to have overall. We'll probably have to agree to disagree here, I guess.  

[Mr_Hatter 1,603]

56 minutes ago, GustavMattias said:

So, yes, the playoffs get more players more games, but that comes at the expense of making the regular season a good deal more boring than it needs to be. Is that what we want?

(Cutting off some of your post to keep the quote short.)

 

Thanks for the perspective! I've only ever known the 11 team VHLM so I can't really speak how it used to be  I guess the one thing I would say is I think the hope is that the M develops to the point at which the playoff race is super exciting again, while still being inclusive to more teams.

 

I think right now its partially because of how the M gets and loses its players so it's really sink or swim year in/year out, but I think the new cap of 250 should serve to fix that, by making drafts have more ramification for a long term, thus (hopefully) improving the competitive nature of the league by making its competition more steady and less variable year to year because good teams losing all their pieces in one go (Look at the Ottawa championship squad we had in 67, versus the one from 68).

 

I think if that goes to plan, then hopefully the competitive increase across the board will make 8 teams more viable (and more similar to the proportion where 6/8 made it; obviously that proportion worked, you said it yourself, but I think it's only an issue right now due to the relatively recent expansion)

[Garsh 1,087]

1 hour ago, GustavMattias said:

I mean, to me:

 

Competition = entertainment = engagement = retention

 

But that's just my opinion, of course.

As someone who is very new I am seeing things differently.  As a short background I found VHL randomly in some twitter replies, I had no idea what a sim league was or any idea what my interest level would be once i started.  I'm not in any danger of leaving but my excitement has certainly died down a bit while I'm sitting around.  Checking my stats was the first thing i was doing every morning, and I looked forward to checking out the advanced stats posted in the team's discord on my lunch break.  I'm at a point where every game my player is in is kinda exciting. Most of my games are just me getting a hit or two but i want to see that.  

 

I'll be honest, I'm not really following the playoffs.  It doesn't matter how competitive the games are I'm not at a point where I'm overly concerned with how other are doing.  I'm sure this will change over time as I get to know more people through playing with them or just knowing the community longer.  I'm not sure how other new players view things but this is how I do currently.

 

That being said, obviously there is probably some downtime that can't be avoided.  Most teams will lose out in the playoffs at some point and I'm not sure what off seasons look like here but there is probably some there too.  That's something that I'll get used to but even if my team got dumpstered in the first round being included in more stuff would be more fun.

 

This post has gotten away from me a bit as it's getting late for me but hopefully everything makes sense.

[FrostBeard 1,975]

I have personally quite a few times talked about this idea of 6 team playoff bracket and for me it is a simple not worth it. Yes, we would be making VHLM more competitive and there would clearly be straight lines between competitive teams and tanking teams. Then again - here comes the question of do we really need to tank here in VHLM? 
All in all, I do believe that giving players in VHLM a chance at having playoff experience and suspense is a lot more important than making league a bit more competitive. 

[Beketov 8,654]

9 hours ago, Berocka said:

I think there could be a way you keep an 8 team finals and still make it more competitive, giving the 7th and 8th seeds more of a chance. It is the finals system that is used in Australia.

 

 

The top 4 play each other first in a qualifying final, the winners get a bye and the losers face the winners of the bottom 4 seeds. So the people who finish in the top 4 essentially get a second chance, meaning that people will fight to get a higher spot in the playoffs.

 

Let me know what you think @Erik Summers and @Banackock 

I’m gonna read the rest of this thread later but just wanted to bring up that I’m 99% sure STHS cannot have playoffs formatted in this way. I think it MIGHT be able to when you set it to WC mode but that changes a pile of other things as well that don’t work for us.

 

Basically once a team loses their playoff round they are out. We can manually set who plays who if we want to do some complexity (that’s how crossover always worked) but we can’t bring back losing teams to play in further rounds.