Are Detroit Red Wings getting screwed by NHL playoff rules?

By NHL rules, the Detroit Red Wings (92 points, minus-10 goal differential) are not a playoff team this season, but the Los Angeles Kings (89 points, minus-19 goal differential) are a playoff team.

Is that something Red Wings fans should be upset about?

On the surface, the Red Wings don't exactly have the biggest gripe when it comes to playoff positioning. The 2024-25 Calgary Flames, for example, finished the season with 96 points and missed the playoffs, which ties three other teams for the NHL record for most points from a non-playoff team. The Red Wings can max out at 94 – close, but not historically high, especially since the Washington Capitals can max out at 95 this season while still missing the playoffs.

The Kings, meanwhile, aren't even close to the worst-performing team ever to make the playoffs. That title belongs to the 1987-88 Toronto Maple Leafs, who finished with a 21-49-10 record (52 points) but made the playoffs anyway thanks to a weak Norris Division (the Red Wings beat them in six games in the first round before losing to the Edmonton Oilers in the conference finals).

But this year's Kings and yesteryear's Maple Leafs made the playoffs with one common thread – a weak division and a playoff format that doesn't account for divisional strength.

The Red Wings' Atlantic Division is arguably the deepest in the NHL this season, with five teams above the 97-point threshold that no team has ever missed the playoffs with and three teams (Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning and Montreal Canadiens) finishing with at least 106 points. Meanwhile, the Kings' Pacific Division leaders, the Vegas Golden Knights, can max out at 95 points, not enough to make the playoffs in the Eastern Conference this season.

Overall, the Red Wings are on track to finish with more points than four Western Conference playoff teams – half of the conference's entire playoff field.

But that may be too simple a way of looking at it. These teams don't play the exact same schedules, with the Kings having to play the likes of the Colorado Avalanche and Dallas Stars three times each while the Wings only played those Western Conference favorites twice.

However, the schedule imbalance can also tip the argument in Detroit's favor, with the Kings getting four cracks at the NHL-worst Vancouver Canucks while the Wings got virtually no days off in a stacked Atlantic, where the two worst-performing teams were the defending division champions (Maple Leafs) and the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions (Florida Panthers).

How exactly is that fair?

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The NHL is the only major North American pro sports league to guarantee three playoff spots to each division, partially because it has just four divisions compared to eight in the NFL and six in the NBA and MLB. But those leagues only reward division winners with automatic playoff berths, forcing the rest of the field to compete for wild-card spots with the rest of their conference opponents instead of those in the division.

That's not to say that each league has a more equitable playoff system than the NHL's. The NBA's Golden State Warriors, for example, have clinched a play-in spot despite finishing the season eight games under .500. That's what happens when a league awards 20 teams a chance to win an NBA title in a 30-team league.

But a key difference here is the nature of hockey vs basketball. Nobody considers the Warriors a serious threat to win an NBA title this season since the NBA playoffs almost always sift out lower seeds early on in the tournament. Teams ranked lower than the 3-seed in their conference have only ever won an NBA title twice – the 1995 Houston Rockets (as a 6-seed) and the 1969 Boston Celtics (as a 4-seed), though the Indiana Pacers made the 2025 NBA Finals as a 4-seed.

Meanwhile, the Kings can testify how possible it is to win the Stanley Cup Final even as an 8-seed, because they did it in 2012. There's simply more variance in hockey than basketball, where a hot goaltender and some good bounces can occasionally carry you.

So if Red Wings fans get upset about the playoffs, it may not be because Detroit deserves a shot, but because the Kings will have a chance to repeat their historical feat despite having a worse record in a worse division than the Wings. And perhaps that's an argument that won't gather much sympathy – unless the Kings, Anaheim Ducks, or anyone from the Pacific Division makes a stunning run to the Final.

Because as disappointing as they were down the stretch, the Wings could probably win a series against anyone from the Pacific, no matter how poorly they played at the end of the season.

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You can reach Christian at cromo@freepress.com.

This article originally appeared on Detroit Free Press: Are Detroit Red Wings getting screwed by NHL playoff rules?