05-18-2023, 12:40 PMKeven Wrote: For anyone who wants the full tables, here's the last 15 seasons of both the NHL and SHL.
Is the goal of the league to replicate the NHL as closely as possible? No. Is it really possible for the SHL to replicate the NHL with only 20 teams in the league? Also no.
I'd argue that although the SHL playoffs could definitely use a bit more randomness, the only real issue with predictability comes from seeds 11-16 being included as free first round wins. These teams are in the bottom half of the league and just aren't as good as the seeds 11-16 that make it into the NHL playoffs.
I don't have anything more insightful to say. I just like providing the numbers for other people to look at.

Thank you for the numbers, they really help clear things up a lot. I'm not sure how your conclusion from them can be that it is only about the 11-16 seeds though, when these tables show so clearly, in my opinion, that the SHL is a lot more top-heavy than the NHL.

In the NHL you have that whole #7-#16 tier which has managed to do a lot, like 46% of cup wins and an additional 8 finals appearances over 15 seasons. Going by these numbers, roughly 50% of the teams that show up in the finals are from the lower-60% of playoff seeds.

Since the SHL is a bit smaller, you could probably translate that to around the #6 to #13 tier or so. Who combine for just 7% of cup wins and a measly 3 additional finals appearances. Only 13% of the teams that show up in the finals are from that lower group of seeds. That's soooo much less than both in real life and what we had before the engine change.
Caveat: The numbers do change a lot depending on whether you include #5 as well or not, since the cut-off between competitive and not very competitive seemed to have been between #5 and #6 in recent years, with the #5 seed having top-caliber numbers and the #6 seed having midfield numbers.

In contrast, if you look at the top, 33% of cup wins in the NHL come from the top-3 teams, while in the SHL it's 80%. 26% of all finals appearances in the NHL are top-3 teams, whereas in the SHL it's 56%.

You really can't argue that this lack of parity doesn't exist. You can argue that it is not a problem for one reason or another, or that enough steps have been taken recently for this problem to work itself out over the next couple of seasons, that's fair, but it is there and shows itself in all metrics. And yes, the NHL shouldn't be the be all and end all for our comparisons, that's a fair point and not realistic. But if the difference is so stark and such a departure from how the league used to be for much of its existence, it is worth discussing. Because it means that a large portion of our player base is fighting over scraps, even if they are super-engaged, max earning and so on.