Any Hockey Fans Here?

[Schmoe1]

Let me get this straight now.

So NHL skipped regular season altogether? How did they decide what teams will play against each other? Or what teams even make it to playoffs?

There were about 13 games or so left in the regular season, so they went with a round Robin determining the top 4 teams from the western and eastern conference to play a pool of games against each other to determine seeding.  So the top 4 play against each other, seeding is determined by points from wins and ties.

The qualifying round are the lower seeded teams, an additional 8 teams from each conference, play a best of 5 series to determine who gets into the traditional stanley cup playoffs, which will be best of 7.

I think it's a fair compromise to the teams that were at 9 and 10 on the seeding charts, they could have gotten into the playoffs in those remaining 13 games, it usually comes down to the last game. I remember the Flyers got into the playoffs one year after winning a shootout in the final game of the season. That year they went to the Stanley Cup Finals, but lost in 6 to a pretty stacked Blackhawks team.