Metropolitan Division clearly superior to Atlantic this season

As the NHL season winds down with roughly 10 games remaining, one of the most fascinating playoff races to watch will involve three teams who have already clinched postseason berths. Washington, Columbus and Pittsburgh are separated by just two points atop the league standings, and because they're all in the same division, one is guaranteed to be eliminated in the first round.

If you want to know what players think about that, consider Capitals forward Daniel Winnik's reaction when he was asked on Monday.

“The playoff format where you, Columbus and Pittsburgh . . .“a reporter began.

“Stupid,” Winnik interrupted. “It's the stupidest thing ever.”

The Capitals and captain Alex Ovechkin have faced frequent criticism for repeatedly failing to advance beyond the second round and into the Eastern Conference Final, and though this is the best team that has surrounded Ovechkin in Washington, the path to the third round will be harder than ever. It's a cruel reality for Metropolitan Division teams who have reason to be frustrated.

The NHL's current format features the top three teams qualifying for the postseason from each division and then two wild cards from each conference. The Capitals, Blue Jackets and Penguins have the NHL's three best records, but the two teams that fall short of that top spot in the Metropolitan Division will have to battle each other in the first round despite finishing with more points than any team from the Atlantic.

That places a greater emphasis on securing first place and avoiding a firstround matchup that could be more competitive than the conference final. In the NHL's “group of death” division, Washington's game against Columbus on Thursday night will have significant ramifications.

“You're not going to get an easy one, but that 2-3 matchup could take a pretty big piece out of a team,” Coach Barry Trotz said. “If you have to go through it, you have to go through it. You can't avoid it. But if you can finish first, I think you might get a little bit less of a piece out than those two teams based on the regular season.”

The league moved to the current format after the most recent lockout with the intent of placing more emphasis on intradivision rivalries. Winnik's counterpoint was that fans tire of repeatedly seeing the same matchups in the postseason and that rivalries are born in the playoffs anyway, as was the case with the Detroit Red Wings and the Colorado Avalanche after their on-ice melee in the 1997 postseason.

But the format has drawn the most criticism for what's seen as an insufficient reward for finishing first in the conference. In the case of the Capitals last season, they had the best regularseason record, but because teams that finish in the top three of a division play each other in the first two rounds, Washington was forced to face the Eastern Conference's second-best team, Pittsburgh, short of the conference final.

This season, the New York Rangers seem likely to finish in fourth place in the Metropolitan Division and land in the first wild-card position, meaning they'll cross over and play the top Atlantic Division team. Though New York would be the lower-seeded team, it has more points (94) than projected opponent Montreal (91). Though the Rangers have been the fourth-best team in their division, they could have the easier path to the conference final. Washington forward Nicklas Backstrom diplomatically called that “odd.”

Defenseman Brooks Orpik said players were largely against the format when it was being collectively bargained four years ago.

“It was something the league wanted, and it was something we kind of bowed down to,” Orpik said. “The league got what they wanted, but right from when they tried to institute it, I know the players were strongly against it . . . It was something that we could've fought, but we would've had to give up something else, just like any other negotiation.”

The format runs through the 2018-19 season, but Washington General Manager Brian MacLellan said this year's cluster atop the Metropolitan Division should serve as an impetus for a discussion about changing it. He suggested reseeding the teams after every round based on their regular-season record.

“It seems to me that there's a little bit of benefit to finish first, but it's not the best,” MacLellan said last month. “It's not a good system when your one wildcard team can cross over and they have kind of a clear path to - if they perform - a clear path to get to the final. I think the incentive should be the higher team gets the easier path, however you work that out. And that's not the way it is now.”