The minor playoff rule change that altered NHL history, including 4 Stanley Cup winners

New York Times

22-07-2025

During the 1986 offseason, a very strange thing happened in the NHL: The league made a rule change that nobody got all that upset about.
That was rare, even back then, because fans like to complain about things. But this change was so simple, and so obviously the right decision, that there really wasn't anything to complain about. Or so we thought.
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The rule had to do with the playoff format, and the league's ongoing attempts to have one that made sense. Since 1974, when the league added a fourth round to the playoff tournament, the first round had always been shorter than the others. Originally, it had been a three-game preliminary round, later increasing to five games. In 1986, the league decided to expand the first round to seven games, the same as the others. And everyone went 'Sure, that makes sense.' Maybe a few of us complained that the extra games would make the season longer. But the extra playoff hockey, and the extra revenue it would generate, was an easy sell. And so the change was made, and then nobody thought of it again.
Until today. Or in my case, until a few weeks ago, when a reader named Andrew asked a question: How much does hockey history change if the first round had stayed best-of-five?
The answer, as it turns out, is 'a lot.' So today, we're going to go back to that decision from nearly 40 years ago, and work our way through an alternate version of NHL history that could — fair warning — make some of you sad.
The Washington Capitals took care of business on the road, winning on back-to-back nights in Long Island to eliminate the Islanders in four games.
It's a disappointing loss for the Islanders, the one-time dynasty looking to rebuild with a younger roster led by 21-year-old star Pat LaFontaine. They'd hoped that this year's playoff would afford him the chance to produce a signature moment, but instead, the young phenom failed to even score a goal in the series.
The Capitals will now enjoy a short break before facing the Flyers, while the Islanders head home. If it's any consolation, at least LaFontaine and the rest of New York's disappointed players will get to spend the Easter holiday with their families, instead of putting in hours of unpaid overtime at work. Here's hoping their Easter ends up being epic.
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When it became clear that the Oilers would face former captain Wayne Gretzky and his Los Angeles Kings in round one, hockey fans felt sure that the Great One would have something dramatic in store for the team that traded him away.
Nope. The Oilers won the series pretty easily, taking it in four games despite the Kings having home-ice advantage. It's a disappointing start to the Gretzky era in Los Angeles, one that will no doubt raise questions about whether the blockbuster trade was even worth it.
The streak is over. After losing to the Oilers in five straight playoff matchups dating back to 1983, the Winnipeg Jets have finally slayed the dragon. The end came on Dave Ellett's dramatic double-overtime power-play goal to end Game 4, which sparked a wild celebration worthy of a series-winner.
The loss is a crushing blow for the Oilers, and specifically for captain Mark Messier, whose reputation in the post-Gretzky era takes a massive hit. There had been hopes in Edmonton that Messier could lead the team to another Stanley Cup, cementing himself as a legitimate NHL superstar instead of merely a supporting player. Instead, the loss makes it clear that Messier is just not the sort of leader who can guarantee his team a win.
As for the Jets, the win easily ranks as the biggest moment in Winnipeg's NHL history, and could even generate enough enthusiasm in the fan base to help the team ward off any financial challenges in the coming years.
In what can only be described as a devastating loss for a team that had spent the year before adding Hall of Fame caliber talent around superstar Mario Lemieux, the Penguins were eliminated in the first round by the underdog Devils in Game 5.
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Lemieux had been unable to get his team over the hump since breaking into the league in 1984, but fans have defended him by pointing out that no player can win a Cup all on his own. The Penguins apparently agreed, and had spent the year before adding players such as Ron Francis, Larry Murphy, Joey Mullen and first-round pick Jaromir Jagr. In the end, it barely mattered, as they fell to a New Jersey team that couldn't even finish .500 on the season.
While some critics are calling for the Penguins to blow it all up and start over, initial word out of Pittsburgh is that the team will run it back one more time, banking on a better playoff performance in 1992.
The Lemieux-era Penguins will go into the history books as the greatest team to never win a Stanley Cup.
That much seems inevitable in the aftermath of their second straight first-round exit from the playoffs, this one at the hands of Washington. The Caps put an emphatic end to the series with a 7-2 win in Game 4, sending the Penguins off the ice to a chorus of boos from disgusted home fans.
While Lemieux's Penguins have seen moderate regular-season success, almost cracking the 90-mark in each of the last two seasons, they've collapsed quickly once the playoffs arrived. Clearly, major changes will be coming to Pittsburgh, and it remains to be seen if anyone will be safe on a team that will be remembered as a massive failure.
The first round of the playoffs is over, and once again the season's most important games will be played without the Vancouver Canucks. The team hasn't been out of the second round since 1982, a streak that will continue after they were eliminated by the Flames in four games, capped off by a third-period collapse on home ice to end their season.
That 1982 team, of course, was the one that made an unlikely run all the way to the Stanley Cup final. Some Canucks fans had hoped for a similar outcome from this year's squad, but that was clearly a pipe dream. With Pavel Bure proving to be a regular-season wonder, captain Trevor Linden unable to produce numbers to match his overinflated reputation and goalie Kirk McLean failing to deliver key saves, any hope that Pat Quinn's players could turn into more than the sum of their parts has now been permanently dashed.
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Ho hum, the Caps beat the Penguins yet again, concluding the latest chapter in what's becoming one of the sport's more lopsided rivalries. The official end to the series came in a Game 4 blowout, but the series was basically over once Washington took the lead for good after three games. If there's one thing we've learned from watching these teams face off in the playoffs, it's that the Capitals are not the sort of team that blows a series lead.
Despite an early wobble that saw them lose Game 1 and need overtime to square the series in Game 2, the favored Phoenix Coyotes were able to right the ship in time to eliminate the Blues in four games.
While winning one round may not seem like much, the victory will no doubt come as a relief to Coyotes ownership, and to the league that's backed them. The team had lost in the first round of the playoffs in each of their first two years in Phoenix, and at some point, you have to win to build a sustainable fan base. Failing to win a single series in their first — let's just pick a random number here for sake of argument — fifteen years of existence would obviously be the sort of disaster that no new market could realistically recover from. But that's not something the Coyotes will have to worry about now, so let the desert era begin.
On paper, it looked like one of the biggest mismatches in recent playoff history. On the ice, it played out essentially the same way, as the star-studded Avalanche had an easy time with the Wild, cutting that team's playoff debut short with a Game 4 win.
This Avalanche team is built to win the Cup, featuring MVP favorite Peter Forsberg along with Joe Sakic and Rocket Richard-winner Milan Hejduk. As if that wasn't enough, the team has extra motivation to win for Patrick Roy in what will be the legendary goalie's final season. Roy's final chapter may or may not come with a fifth ring, but it certainly wasn't ending at the hands of a recent expansion team.
The Wild, to their credit, at least managed to win a game in the series. But that was all that could be expected from a team whose offense is basically Marian Gaborik and then a bunch of spare parts such as Andrew Brunette, a plugger whose next big goal will be his first. Coach Jacques Lemaire has faced some criticism for sticking with struggling starter Dwayne Roloson throughout the series, which is fair. But it hardly matters, since his alternative was career backup Manny Fernandez, who certainly wasn't going to come in and miraculously outduel the legendary Roy.
It's the same old story for the Washington Capitals: They just don't collapse in the playoffs.
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Of course, that option was never really on the table for this year's edition, a Presidents' Trophy-winning juggernaut that easily sent the underdog Canadiens packing in four games with a 6-3 win in Montreal. It was the sort of first-round flex you expect from a Cup contender, and a reassuring message that this Caps team has been built the right way.
As for the Canadiens, give them full credit for trying in a series in which they never had a chance. There will be concerns going forward about the goaltending, as young Carey Price and veteran Jaroslav Halak were both shelled in the series. But given the disparity between the two teams, it would have taken a lot more than one hot goalie for Montreal to have any sort of chance.
Sabres fans will have to wait a while before they see playoff action again.
About two days, to be exact. That's when their second-round series is set to begin, after the Sabres knocked out the Flyers in a thrilling winner-take-all Game 5 that was decided in overtime.
In unrelated news, Ville Leino had just one point in the Flyers' five-game playoff run, ending any hopes that some dumb team will overpay him in free agency in a few weeks.
The Bruins eliminated the Leafs in four games, a predictable result that will probably be forgotten a few weeks later.
Given how lopsided the series has been, the Leafs are lucky that this was only a best-of-five. If there had been another game, the Bruins surely would have won that one too, and then Toronto fans would have had to hear about '4-1' for years to come.
Save your jokes about being playoff chokers. The Sharks clearly don't want to hear them this year, taking care of the rival Kings in a three-game sweep. It's only been one round, but it's fair to say that this San Jose team feels different. You could see it in their eyes.
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The loss raises significant questions about the Kings, the 2012 champs who now look like one-hit wonders. They'd hoped to be in the running again this year, but the Sharks showed that they're not in the same league. You have to wonder if we'll even see them win a round in the next decade or so.
In fact, the Kings' outlook is so pathetic that Sharks captain Joe Thornton was bummed out just thinking about it.
They say that a young team's first playoff series win is a crucial stepping stone.
Well, this Leafs team already got that one out of the way two years before, when they beat the Bruins in five games. But this win probably tastes even sweeter, coming against their arch-rivals who realistically never had a chance. The Leafs dropped a flukey Game 1 in the aftermath of the John Tavares injury, but then never looked back, winning the last three games of the series by a combined score of 11-2, including a decisive shutout in the clincher.
It's a tough lesson for the Canadiens, but one all teams have to learn: It's one thing to win early in a series, but you have to be able to close. Brendan Shanahan's Maple Leafs have clearly figured that lesson out early.
Adrian Kempe's overtime winner brought a quick end to the winner-take-all Game 5 between the Kings and Oilers.
It was an entertaining series between two teams who rarely face each other in the playoffs. In fact, the meeting was the first between the two teams since all the way back in 1992. The Oilers eliminated the Kings that year, as well as in 1991 and 1990. Thankfully, Kings fans won't have to worry about a fourth-straight loss against the same team, since that would be pathetic.
That didn't take long. Not that anybody thought it would.
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Coming off a record 135-point season, the Bruins made quick work of the Panthers, ending their first-round series in four games with a convincing 6-2 blowout in Florida. It was a fitting result, given the massive disparity between the two teams, and sets the Bruins up as decisive Cup favorites going forward.
As for the Panthers, they'll face tough questions after what can only be described as a disastrous 12 months. One year removed from a Presidents' Trophy of their own, the Panthers indulged in an overactive offseason that saw them hire Paul Maurice and trade for Matthew Tkachuk, only to plunge 30 points in the standings and barely make the playoffs.
The end result, one that absolutely everyone saw coming: It turns out that a coach who quit on the Jets and a playoff choker from Calgary were somehow not the final pieces for a team of underachievers, cheap-shot artists and Buffalo Sabres castoffs. The good news is that they only have three years left on Sergei Bobrovsky's albatross of a contract. Given how big a mess Bill Zito has made of this team in short order, it's fair to say that he'll be long gone by the time that deal runs out in 2025.
At least one thing is clear: Over the next few years, the road to the Eastern Conference championship will feature a mandatory stop in Florida … when it's time to take your kids to Disney World to celebrate beating the good teams.
(Top photo of the Maple Leafs and Bruins in 2013: Brian Babineau / NHLI via Getty Images)