Latest Realignment Proposal Makes No Sense...

**(419)BlackNGold** · Feb-24-2013, 12:19 PM

According to CBC's Elliotte Friedman,

One Eight team conference would include Pittsburgh, Carolina, Columbus, New Jersey, the New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Philadelphia and Washington.

Another eight-team conference would include Detroit, Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, Buffalo, Tampa Bay and Florida.

One seven-team conference would feature Chicago, Colorado, Dallas, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis and Winnipeg.

The other seven-team conference would have Anaheim, Calgary, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose and Vancouver.

The Top 4 teams from each conference will make the playoffs.

The plan must be approved by the board of governors.

http://sports.yahoo.com/blogs/nhl-pu...6857--nhl.html

more...

NHL realignment is inevitable. It was just a matter of figuring out the playoff format, and which Western Conference teams would be super ****ed about getting screwed over in the process. (But more on Nashville later.)

The 2011 realignment format approved by the NHL, but spiked by the Players Association, had four conferences – two with eight teams, two with seven. Carolina and Washington joined the Atlantic Division teams; Tampa Bay and Florida joined the Northeast Division teams; Dallas, Minnesota and Winnipeg joined the Central Division teams; and Colorado, Edmonton, Calgary and Vancouver joined the Pacific Division teams.

This format didn’t soothe the ills of the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets, two Eastern Time Zone teams in exile out west. Both wanted to shift to the Eastern Conference teams’ divisions; neither were realigned in that format.

Now, NHL is expected to announce its new realignment as early as this week, and CBC’s Elliotte Friedman offered a glimpse on Hockey Night In Canada on Saturday night.

Winnipeg, Detroit and Columbus move. But is this new format good for the NHL?

Here’s the new four-conference alignment the NHL is considering:

Here was the original idea for scheduling, via NHL.com (keep in mind every team in the NHL will play home-and-home as well):

In the seven-team conferences, teams would play six times -- three home, three away. In the eight-team Conferences, teams would play either five or six times in a season on a rotating basis; three teams would play each other six times and four teams would play each other five times. This process would reverse each season: An eight-team Conference member that plays an opponent six times in one season would play it five times the following season.

Whatever the schedule, this is a huge win for Detroit, which was rumored to have been promised this realignment for several years.

The Wings are a perfect fit geographically here, and the NHL and its television partners must been swooning from the potential ratings for Detroit vs. Boston/Buffalo/Montreal/Toronto on a conference-rival basis. (This realignment means only good things for television -- especially if a "divisional playoff" format is adopted as well.)

It’s also a huge win for Columbus – hell, it’s a franchise game-changer. The Jackets will have Pittsburgh as a division rival, which is an enormous boon; not only because it brings a premiere franchise from the same time zone to town, but because Penguins fan invasions for those games already have created a kinetic atmosphere in the arena.

But most of all, Jackets fans won't have to stay up to the wee hours just to see their team face conference rivals.

Tampa Bay and Florida will now be in the same division as the snowbird fans that fill their seats every winter. Washington returns to its old Patrick Division friends, ending the days of Southeast Division “rivalries” that never came to fruition.

In the “West”, the Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars and Minnesota Wild are the big winners, both in geography and rivalry. (Let’s get that Minnesota/Winnipeg feud going already.)

One loser: The Nashville Predators, who wanted to be realigned to the East but whose Central Time Zone kept them in the “West.” Plus they lose those visits from the Red Wings.

Another consideration: Expansion and relocation. The “Eastern Conference” now has the eight-team conferences, which is a change from the previous format that seemed tailor-made for the addition of two teams in the East, i.e. Quebec and a second Toronto team. What now?

That said, this realignment, by and large, makes sense. The real issue is going to be with the playoffs, given the unbalanced conferences.

The original concept: The Stanley Cup Playoffs will begin inside each conference, with the top four teams squaring off in divisional playoffs. The four conference champions will advance to face each other for the right to play for the Cup, potentially without geographic restrictions (i.e. they’re re-seeded).

So, in other words, the New York Rangers and the Boston Bruins could play for the Stanley Cup. Which is really cool.

The wrinkle, as Friedman reported, is that the NHL is discussing a “wild card” option for those 8-team conferences.

The wild cards may end up being some variation of the “play-in” game or series that was floated earlier this year. So you’d take the No. 4 and No. 5 seeds on an 8-team conference, have them square off, and then the winner faces the regular-season conference champion. But that was just one theory.

**(419)BlackNGold** · Feb-24-2013, 12:21 PM

Simple solution:

Winnipeg to Northwest, Minnesota to Central, Nashville to Southeast.

NHL solution:

Create 4 new Conferences, some with 8 teams, some with 7 teams. Put all the Eastern Canadian teams in the same conference as the Florida teams? (I guess Canadian snowbirds will keep the Florida teams afloat?) And have 95% of the leagues superstars in the East with most playing in what was the Atlantic Division. Makes perfect sense to NHL logic.Who wants to see Detroit play Chicago anyway? If you draw a line on a map from Detroit to Toronto - Buffalo - Ottawa - Montreal - Boston - Tampa to Miami it forms a nearly perfect question mark! (?) lol IMO, good rivalries are created when fans from the road team can drive to the home teams venue.

**foslrock** · Feb-24-2013, 08:27 PM

I actually like the proposal. There are too many teams that get that third seed as a team that would be a 8th seed, or not even make the playoffs. This would eliminate some of that. It's got a combination of the old school patrick-adams-smythe-norris divisions playoff system that might make winning your division mean more than it currently does. Anyone remember those old divisions? Or am I too old?

**battlingbucs** · Feb-25-2013, 11:55 AM

I'm all for a realignment like that but yeah the Canadian teams with the Florida teams need to go.

**battlingbucs** · Feb-25-2013, 03:10 PM

Thought this could be of some interest. I ranked the 30 teams by how far they were north and south (Latitude) and East and West (longitude). I then added the rankings together to create a north west score, a north east score, a south west score and a south east score. Finally I put the team in a conference based off which score was there lowest. The results are below:

North East: Maple Leafs, Sabres, Senators, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Canadiens, Bruins
South East: Blue Jackets, Lightning, Hurricanes, Panthers, Penguins, Capitals, Flyers
North West: Canucks, Flames, Oilers, Jets, Wild, Blackhawks, Red Wings
South West: Sharks, Kings, Ducks, Coyotes, Avalanche, Stars, Blues, Predators

I think those would make for some pretty good conferences and the geography at least makes decent sense.

**Kipper** · Feb-26-2013, 04:04 PM

I'm not against the new Alignment plan. Makes more sense than the previous one.

I'd have to go back through the archives here and find my "re-alignment idea from the past which basically was more about location and less about "rivalries". I figure that there's always a program out there that can figure out how to play a rival team from a different conference more than a team that's not a rival in anothe3r conference (for instance, play one team 4 times and another team 2 times)

**El Sid** · Feb-27-2013, 10:00 PM

I love this new realignment. I liked the first one too, but I love this one even more for the simple fact that we get the Blue Jackets in our conference. I LOVE MAKING THE COLUMBUS TRIP! It sucks that I only get to take it once a season....if that. I also love the playoff format, although I don't like the idea of a play-in series. I happen to be on in favor of keeping old rivalries together, ie. Pit/Phi, Mont/Bos, NYI/NYR. But, I think it opens the door for more rivalries. Can you imagine a rivalry sparked by a Penguins/Sabres or even a Penguins/Leafs Stanley Cup final? Look at what the Penguins/Red Wings final produced. (5 hour drive + rematch)

**foslrock** · Feb-28-2013, 02:09 PM

Originally Posted by battlingbucs

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Thought this could be of some interest. I ranked the 30 teams by how far they were north and south (Latitude) and East and West (longitude). I then added the rankings together to create a north west score, a north east score, a south west score and a south east score. Finally I put the team in a conference based off which score was there lowest. The results are below:

North East: Maple Leafs, Sabres, Senators, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Canadiens, Bruins
South East: Blue Jackets, Lightning, Hurricanes, Panthers, Penguins, Capitals, Flyers
North West: Canucks, Flames, Oilers, Jets, Wild, Blackhawks, Red Wings
South West: Sharks, Kings, Ducks, Coyotes, Avalanche, Stars, Blues, Predators

I think those would make for some pretty good conferences and the geography at least makes decent sense.

Problem with your list is that timezones in the northwest and southwest can be up to 3 hours a part. That makes for late night games for fans in Detroit etc. Sooo..that's what they are trying to avoid.

If the Earth rotated north - south instead of east - west your plan could have some merit.

**foslrock** · Feb-28-2013, 02:11 PM

Originally Posted by El Sid

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I love this new realignment. I liked the first one too, but I love this one even more for the simple fact that we get the Blue Jackets in our conference. I LOVE MAKING THE COLUMBUS TRIP! It sucks that I only get to take it once a season....if that. I also love the playoff format, although I don't like the idea of a play-in series. I happen to be on in favor of keeping old rivalries together, ie. Pit/Phi, Mont/Bos, NYI/NYR. But, I think it opens the door for more rivalries. Can you imagine a rivalry sparked by a Penguins/Sabres or even a Penguins/Leafs Stanley Cup final? Look at what the Penguins/Red Wings final produced. (5 hour drive + rematch)

I haven't seen how the playoffs are supposed to go. I remember the original plan said that once the conference round hit, that the 4 remaining teams would be reshuffled by highest win total and that it didn't matter if it was in the "East" or "west" conference. Is this still true?

I'd love it if the conferences just applied to the regular season, and by final 4 time it was reshuffled by seed.

**Kipper** · Feb-28-2013, 02:14 PM

Originally Posted by battlingbucs

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Thought this could be of some interest. I ranked the 30 teams by how far they were north and south (Latitude) and East and West (longitude). I then added the rankings together to create a north west score, a north east score, a south west score and a south east score. Finally I put the team in a conference based off which score was there lowest. The results are below:

North East: Maple Leafs, Sabres, Senators, Devils, Islanders, Rangers, Canadiens, Bruins
South East: Blue Jackets, Lightning, Hurricanes, Panthers, Penguins, Capitals, Flyers
North West: Canucks, Flames, Oilers, Jets, Wild, Blackhawks, Red Wings
South West: Sharks, Kings, Ducks, Coyotes, Avalanche, Stars, Blues, Predators

I think those would make for some pretty good conferences and the geography at least makes decent sense.

Originally Posted by foslrock

This quote is hidden because you are ignoring this member. Show Quote

Problem with your list is that timezones in the northwest and southwest can be up to 3 hours a part. That makes for late night games for fans in Detroit etc. Sooo..that's what they are trying to avoid.

If the Earth rotated north - south instead of east - west your plan could have some merit.

I was gonna mention this too.

The biggest issue that teams seem to have are the Time Zones, so keeping as many of them in the same time zone is pretty important and makes alignment structuring a pain

**Kipper** · Feb-28-2013, 02:15 PM

Here's a MAP from the 2011 proposal that was struck down by Fehr and company in 2012

**pittsburghsportsfan** · Feb-28-2013, 02:22 PM

Originally Posted by foslrock

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I haven't seen how the playoffs are supposed to go. I remember the original plan said that once the conference round hit, that the 4 remaining teams would be reshuffled by highest win total and that it didn't matter if it was in the "East" or "west" conference. Is this still true?

I'd love it if the conferences just applied to the regular season, and by final 4 time it was reshuffled by seed.

* Instead of having a "four conference" format
where the playoffs would decide four
conference winners that would advance to a
re-seeded "final four," the NHL is sticking with
the East vs. West divide. The green conference
and the blue conference on the map above will
form the East and the yellow and orange
conferences will form the West.

Got this from an article on sbnation.