11 nhl teams from each conference go to the playoffs.
how many nhl teams from each conference go to the playoffs?
11
in all four sports, the champion of one conference (or league in mlb's case) plays the champion of the other conference for the final round championship, this is guaranteed to occur because the rules for the playoffs require play to be exclusively within the conference/league in all rounds before the final round, leaving only two teams for the finals (one from each conference/league) and the records of teams outside a conference/league are ignored, which can allow teams with inferior records to make the playoffs while teams in the other conference with better records do not get in. an extreme example of this has occurred twice in the nfl, when the 2010 seattle seahawks and 2014 carolina panthers reached the playoffs by winning their respective divisions despite losing records (7–9 for the seahawks, 7–8–1 for the panthers). these are the only two teams ever to qualify for the playoffs with losing records in seasons that were not shortened by strikes. in addition, a team's regular season schedule is weighted towards more games against other teams within their own division and to a lesser extent their own conference; nba and nhl teams play at least two games (one at each home arena) against every other team in their league in a regular season, but in mlb and the nfl teams do not.
athletic conference
although the nhl's numbers were disputed, there was no question that several franchises were losing money, as several had declared bankruptcy. other franchises had held "fire sales" of franchise players, such as the washington capitals. some small-market teams, such as the pittsburgh penguins and the remaining small-market canadian teams, were actually hoping "for" a lockout, since those teams would make more money by losing a season, with the edmonton oilers even publicly announcing that they would fold outright if there wasn't a lockout. the league did not have large tv revenues in the us, so the nhl was reliant on attendance revenues more than other leagues. after the lockout of the 2004–2005 season, nhl teams made on average only 3 million dollars from television revenues. in addition in may of the 2004–2005 lockout, espn formally denied the option to show nhl games on the network due to low ratings in previous seasons. many nhl teams had low attendance totals in preceding seasons.
2004–05 nhl lockout