The PWHL's new West hands a first-year team a playoff spot

The PWHL got the map right and the bracket wrong. Two six-team conferences is the smart way to run a 12-team league. Letting eight of those 12 into the playoffs is generous, and in the West the math hands a first-year team a playoff series before anyone drops a puck.

The map

The league released its fourth-season schedule on Friday: 180 games, Dec. 5 through April 18, 30 per team. That's up from 120 games last season. Each team plays 18 games inside its conference and 12 against the other side.

• East: Boston Fleet, PWHL Hamilton, Montréal Victoire, New York Sirens, Ottawa Charge, Toronto Sceptres
• West: PWHL Detroit, PWHL Las Vegas, Minnesota Frost, PWHL San Jose, Seattle Torrent, Vancouver Goldeneyes

Eighteen conference games is the best part of the whole release. Rivalries come from seeing the same jerseys four or five times a winter, and the travel gets saner for a league that now stretches from Montréal to Las Vegas.

The bracket

The top four in each conference make it. The first round is best-of-three, then best-of-five conference finals and a best-of-five Walter Cup Final. The first-place team in each conference gets to pick its first-round opponent from the third and fourth seeds, which is the one wrinkle I'd keep forever.

Here's the Ferda number: by our count, the playoff field goes from half the league last spring (four of eight) to two-thirds of it (eight of 12).

In the West it's stranger. Detroit, Las Vegas and San Jose are brand new, and Seattle and Vancouver are in year two. With four spots and only three teams that aren't expansion clubs, at least one first-year team is guaranteed a playoff series.

The East is the opposite. Montréal beat Ottawa 4-0 in Game 4 to win the Walter Cup in May, and both of them, Boston and Toronto are in the same six-team pod with Hamilton and New York. Somebody good is going home in April.

The problem with three games

A best-of-three is one hot goalie and a bad bounce. A 30-game season can end in two nights, and the team that was better for five months has no room to fix a bad Saturday. Best-of-five rounds the whole way would have cost a week and been worth it.

"With 12 teams, new conferences and more games than ever before, this schedule reflects the PWHL's monumental growth," Jayna Hefford said. The growth is real. The Takeover Tour is up to 24 games, four per team, and the first All-Star event lands in Toronto on March 7.

The W read: Good map, soft bracket. My call: two-time champion Minnesota wins the West going away, and a first-year team plays in April anyway.