The AHL playoff format is awkward, it's also not going anywhere
Let's try to explain why and how that it is.
Roughly a year ago I had a conversation with an AHL head coach about how the 23-team playoff format had redefined what “success” meant for NHL organizations.
“It’s made making the playoffs lose all meaning,” the coach said. “In prior contracts, I had a deal where making the playoffs meant a bonus, now making the playoffs is the bare minimum to even keep the job.”
There are some people who are AHL aficionados, but for those who are unaware, this season the AHL will be heading into its fourth season with a 23-team playoff format.
That means 71.8 percent of the league makes the playoffs, and in some divisions, 3/4ths of the teams make the playoffs.
It creates an awkward looking breaking that looks like this.
That playoff format also creates a postseason schedule that stretches from April 23 to June 24. If the Calder Cup had gone to Game 7 in 2024, it would have been held on June 26 — two days before the NHL Draft.
Teams also play incredibly disjointed stretches because of the weird schedule.
The Cleveland Monsters, for example, played eight games between April 23 and June 1. Then played six games in 12 days, where they lost to the Hershey Bears in the AHL’s Eastern Conference Final.
Hershey then went on to beat the Coachella Valley Firebirds in six games for their second straight title. Hershey and Coachella, for the second straight year, both endured long layoffs mixed in with frantic stretches of games throughout the postseason.
“It’s awful as a coach, terrible,” one AHL playoff coach told me this year. “We’ve voiced our concerns, but it’s not going to do anything. As long as teams view this league this way, and it’s not changing, we are going to be a sideshow when it comes to the schedule.”
“This way,” is a reference to how the AHL has essentially become a write-off for development. The AHL has always been a development league, but NHL teams in general have been pushing for the games to mean less in the win/loss column, and pivot affiliates to focus on practice time and baseball-esque prospect development.
It’s led to a push where most NHL teams now own their AHL affiliate, or have ownership groups at the NHL and AHL level that are so entangled they might as well be the same person — for example, the Grand Rapids Griffins and the Detroit Red Wings.
The last chance to break this push happened last season, where the Chicago Wolves divorced the Carolina Hurricanes for a season and went independent, citing how the NHL team didn’t care enough about winning AHL titles. The Wolves struggled on the ice and off it, financially it simply didn’t work, and the Wolves and Hurricanes made amends this summer and re-affiliated.
The Wolves couldn’t compete without a full roster of NHL affiliated players and finished last in the seven-team Central Division.
Having spoken to various NHL and AHL decisions makers in recent weeks, it’s become abundantly clear — the AHL season and it’s win/loss results don’t matter, while there a few organizations that put emphasis on actually winning in the league, most have simply accepted that a team being good or bad in the AHL doesn’t impact the final NHL product.
One executive pointed to what’s happened with the Vegas Golden Knights, who have effectively ignored trying to build anything that looks like a competitive product for their AHL club the Henderson Silver Knights.
“It’s just a holding pen for a player or two, they don’t even act like they’ll try to win games (with Henderson),” an AHL source told me. “But no one is going to care, and because of the market they still print money.”
They’re right. Since the Silver Knights have entered the AHL, the franchise has been a top-five AHL revenue team each season.
So you can complain about the AHL playoff format and the logistical oddities it creates — I certainly have and will in the future — but in the end it’s not going to change anything. On top of it all, the AHL players aren’t focused nor cane enough about changing.
Let me explain.
AHL players are represented by the Professional Hockey Players Association (PHPA), not the NHLPA. The PHPA membership typically lets the league and league and teams do what they wish when it comes to format, instead focusing on other player-related issues like individual minimum salaries and other player health benefit. As a minor-league union, efforts are better spent helping each individual than worrying about how the league awards its championship.
Even with the AHL-PHPA collective bargaining agreement set to expire after next season, it’s not something players are going to overly worry about one way or the other.
I'm curious how much COVID changed the mentality, if it did at all, they lost a playoffs and had a short season with (basically) no fans. It was so bad that some teams didn't even play games that shortened season. They have recovered just as quickly as the NHL has by setting record revenue and attendance last year... and I'm sure extra teams in the playoffs have help with all that. Considering there was talk some teams might fold during COVID this all might not be bad.
Also as much as we can complain about lowering the bar to the playoffs so far it's not really affected the Calder Cup Finals. The top two records made it to the finals this year, while last year the two finalist were top 4 in the league in regular season points. (The last two Stanley Cup final have both had a team not top 4 in the league make it.)
I will say this... its crazy to think that the Calder Cup finals could have gone longer tha the Stanley Cup final. The Bears ended it in six game so the both actually ended the same night. Bears won the Calder for the second straight year in OT. Both were hell of a game/series to watch.
This was a depressing read. I feel bad for the guys who only play in the AHL and have to deal with this nonsense.