Should the VHLM have an 8 team playoff?

[Berocka 2,210]

8 minutes ago, Beketov said:

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.

That makes sense. Well we can scrap that idea then, thanks Bek

[Beketov 8,656]

Ah fuck, clicked to see @Berocka’s response and lost mine in the process, oh well.

 

On the whole I agree with @diamond_ace. The VHLM is first and foremost a tool to teach new players how things work and get them engaged and coming back. When we moved to 11 teams we did discuss 6 vs. 8 playoff teams and ultimately settled on 8 because we do want more people to experience the playoffs in the VHLM. Having it the same as the VHL now is a nice bonus.

 

@GustavMattias is correct that this hurts competitiveness in the regular season a bit and that is a bit of a downside I’ll admit but one that, IMO, is worth it. Does the 8th place team stand a chance at beating the first place team? Not likely but it could happen and more importantly it gives new guys a bit of a taste of playoff time even if it’s only a few games.

 

Also I hate byes with a passion so balance is nice but that’s a minor thing haha.

[DangerGolding 222]

Might be biased but the 2-7 matchup this season consisted of 6 games where every game was decided by one goal, so it's not always a forgone conclusion and it allows teams that improve throughout the season to participate in the playoffs.

[Erik Summers 451]

I was going to keep liking everyone's responses because I really appreciate all the engagement on this topic. But sadly, I'm out of reactions.

 

NEW SUGGESTION!

 

Get rid of reaction limits!

[fonziGG 1,065]

Honestly, this idea sounds good and all but I'd prefer if the 3v6 and 4v5 series was a best of 7. This season we saw the 3 seed get reverse-sweeped by the 6th seed. It doesn't happen often but I think it's a case that it can happen in the future.