Twenty-three playoff teams? How does a 23-team playoff format work?

Indeed, 23 teams do qualify for the Calder Cup Playoffs. The two-month journey started Tuesday night when the Hershey Bears pulled off a 2-0 win at Bridgeport. A five-game slate Wednesday night will get the postseason going in full.

The format is simpler than it might appear at first glance despite the odd number of teams. First, however, it is worth examining the motivation that went into reworking the playoff format for the NHL’s top developmental league.

The AHL saw some significant changes in 2022. Coming out of the COVID-19 pandemic that had halted the Calder Cup Playoffs for three full years. At that point, going three years without full postseason play had meant that a significant portion of prospects had never experienced the Calder Cup Playoffs at all. When the AHL cancelled the remainder of the 2019-20 season, that meant no postseason play to end that campaign. A heavily truncated 2020-21 season featured no postseason play beyond a brief tournament hosted by Pacific Division clubs.

When the league prepared to return to its normal self for 2021-22, it had an opportunity to rethink some of its business on and off the ice. Through the years and decades, the league had experimented with a variety of playoff formats. Most recently, it had gone with a 16-team field.

The logic for changing the playoff format in 2022 was simple: a larger playoff field means more players getting at least some taste of the postseason. It also extends opportunities for more clubs to contend for a playoff berth down the regular-season stretch in March and April. Now even teams at the bottom of the AHL can remain alive well into March and even April.

Here are a few key points to remember:

• It's a 23-team field.
• The best-of-three first round is a means to cut the field down to 16 teams. Some teams, however, get a bye for this round.

All first-round play uses a best-of-three format. Now let’s look at playoff qualification.

• In the Atlantic Division, the top six teams qualify for the postseason. The first- and second-place teams receive a first-round bye. The third seed meets the sixth seed while the fourth seed plays the fifth seed.
  
• The North and Central Divisions use an identical format. The first-, second-, and third-place finishers have a first-round bye. The fourth- and fifth-place teams meet.
• For the 10-team Pacific Division, all but the division winner must go into the best-of-three first-round. Seven teams qualify, which means that the second-place team plays the seventh-place finisher. It’s also the third seed versus the sixth-place team while the fourth- and fifth-place teams meet as well.
• With the field now cut to 16 teams, two divisional rounds are held.
  The seeding becomes quite straightforward. The first-place finisher in each division faces the fourth seed. Seeds two and three face each other. The winners of those series will face each other. To help expedite the postseason, these rounds use a best-of-five format.
• The field is cut to eight teams and then to four teams (one per division).
• From there, it’s time for the conference finals. The winner of each division goes to the best-of-seven conference-final round (Atlantic Division vs. North Division in the Eastern Conference Finals, and Central Division vs. Pacific Division in the Western Conference Finals). By that point, the format shifts to a best-of-seven format that will also extend to the Calder Cup Finals.
• The winner of each conference final meets in the Calder Cup Finals.

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