NHL’s Dumbest Playoff Rule Would’ve Flipped Five Series

The playoffs are already cruel enough, but this piece takes a swing at the league’s favorite bit of bureaucratic nonsense and asks how it would have warped five series results. That is the kind of hockey what-if that sends fans into a tailspin because it turns every bounce into a referendum. The fun here is not just the rule itself, but the chain reaction it creates when you start rewriting postseason history. It is a reminder that the NHL has never met a format it could not complicate.