Minimum amount of games needed for playoff seeding?

[Lychees 626]

Just curious as to less and less games that will seemingly be played (although I don't expect to see a season this year), I had this thought of what if a CBA is put through say in February or March, at that point the good majority of the season is kaput.

So my question is what would the minimum amount of games that each team would need to play to determine let's say a half decent play-off bracket in your opinion

[Shift-4 6,411]

I would say 48 since that is what they went with last time a season was shortened.

[Grapefruits 4,020]

Least amount of games to be fair in my opinion would be this: You play each team in your conference twice. One home, one away. Anything less would just cheapen the game even further that in already is.

Personally I say just cancell the season and get it over with

[Snake Doctor 1,007]

I would say 48 since that is what they went with last time a season was shortened.

[G-52 512]

I wanna say 43, each team in conference twice, each team in opposite conference once.

[brewdog 162]

I'll go with 56, just because it's double the maximum number of Playoff games.

[Ghostsof1915 15,485]

Are we being historically technical?

When the Vancouver Millionaires won in 1915, they played 17 games in the regular season.

They went 13-4. Won the PCHL title

The rules were the NHA champions (Forerunner to the NHL) would play the PCHL champions.

Ottawa Senators and Montreal Wanderers both finished 14-6 and played a two game aggregate series to see who played for the cup. Ottawa won 4-1 overall. So they played a whopping 22 games to get to the Stanley Cup.

The Stanley Cup was a best of 5 series. Vancouver won in 3 straight all at the Denman Arena (Downtown Vancouver). How weird is it that the guy who won the series winning goal was Barney Stanley for the Millionaires? Cyclone Taylor scored 6 goals in the series, and Barney Stanley scored 5. Both Taylor and Stanley are in the Hockey Hall of Fame.

So by that count we could have a 17-22 game season. But I think 48 is really the bare minimum.

[brewdog 162]

Ok, just to be crazy... how about no regular season, lottery seedings, and a 5-round, 30-team elimination Playoff? The eliminated team with the best goal differential can be the 16th team in the second round.