There are many options on the table when it comes to potential formats for completing the NHL season.
One of ideas being discussed would involve the NHL scrapping the remainder of the regular season and moving to a 24-team playoff format, which could either include the top 12 teams in each conference or the top six teams in each division.
Another idea is a March Madness-style tournament with all 31 teams potentially playing single-elimination games, or best-of-three series, since Bill Daly said last month that the NHL moving to single-elimination rounds would be unlikely.
When presented with both ideas on Darren Dreger's Dreger Cafe on Tuesday, Sidney Crosby said he'd prefer a 24-team format.
"I'd prefer (the 24-team tournament)," Crosby said. "There's so many factors, right? The safety of players is No. 1. If you're able to establish that, then you want to keep the integrity of what the playoffs have been for a long, long time. It's difficult to win the Stanley Cup. And you want to win it the right way, and that's four best-four-of-seven series. That's how we know it, and with a time like this we're all open to ideas and formats and things like that, but you hope that you can keep that."
Sidney Crosby joins this week's installment of The Dreger Café!
The Penguins Captain tells @DarrenDreger why he prefers the 24 team playoff format being discussed rather than an NCAA style tournament for the Stanley Cup if hockey were to resume in the near future. pic.twitter.com/XsHlF9lgAa
— TSN (@TSN_Sports) May 12, 2020
