How an in-season NHL tournament might work

The NBA's new collective bargaining agreement includes parameters for an in-season tournament, to create higher stakes for regular-season games. If the NHL considers following suit, might it include the incentive of a playoff spot for the tournament winner?

Video Transcript

AVRY LEWIS-MCDOUGALL: A mid-season tourney, I am not-- we've always compared mid-season tourney to the FA Cup, the Carabao Cup. Those tournaments, though, are made of the tournament of different leagues. I don't want to see a mid-season tournment of the same 30 franchises.

I want to see [INAUDIBLE] a mid-season tournament, invite a couple of teams from the DPL, from the SHL, from [INAUDIBLE]. Make it a true tournament in which you could have the Oilers playing Pelicans, you can have Maple Leafs playing HC [INAUDIBLE].

That, to me, is kind of cool, because it would be cool to see a European team win an NHL tournament. That would be cool. A tournament with the same teams over and over again, no, thank you. That's boring.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: I mean, I can understand that, but like, I feel like that goes into a whole other-- like, if you're incorporating teams from all around the world, like, neutrals, what about neutral sites? Like, are we going to Europe for these games, or are we going to North America for these games? Is a team going to have to play extra games on top of what they have in the regular season as a result of that?

Like, at least in what the NBA is trying to do, like, it doesn't seem as if like they'd add that many, if any, games to their regular season schedule. Like, I think in terms of the in-season tournament with what the NBA's at least trying to do, it's at least simplified, even if it is just with the same teams.

Also maybe this is a radical idea, in terms of making it cool and incentivizing people to care about it, I think you do a tournament where a playoff spot is on the line. If you win the tournament, you clinch a playoff spot.

OMAR: Guaranteed? Yo, that will be sick.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: That's how you do it.

OMAR: But you'd have to have it later in the season then, you couldn't have it, like, halfway through. Like, it would have to-- it would have to be, like, [INAUDIBLE] a post-deadline tournament.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Fair. That's fair. But like, I think if you do it that way, where like-- say like you were a fifth seed, or I guess it wouldn't really work since we don't have a one through eight, but say you're in one of those divisional spots when you get the spot, and you win the tournament, and something crazy happens where you lose a couple of spots, like, the worst you could finish no lower than like the lowest possible seed.

Like, if you're technically supposed to be in the spot where you're out of the playoffs, like, you clinch that spot, you already did what you need to do. And maybe some people might think that's unfair, but like, if you did the work in season to win that tournament, I think that should be enough.

Maybe that's a wild idea. And maybe I'm just using this as a platform to just get on my soapbox and be like, hey, let's do this. But I think we should start doing some crazy-- we should start doing some crazy stuff in the NHL. I think we should start there.

SAM CHANG: I like--

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Tell me I'm wrong.

SAM CHANG: I like the concept. I think it could be good. I have zero faith in the league's ability to execute on a good tournament.

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Let's try to imagine a world where we don't have to worry about the NHL's incompetence.

OMAR: If we're not worrying about that, then that could be really cool.

SAM CHANG: If you could have, like, the NBA run this tournament for the NHL, yes.

[LAUGHTER]

JULIAN MCKENZIE: Just call Adam Silver and be like, hey, what do you think?