NHL realignment

[BurlOak]

It appears that the NHL is moving towards a realignment of divisions. Instead of 3 divisions of 5, in both Conferences, they are now proposing 2 Conferences - one with 2-7 teams divisions and one with 2-8 team divisions. Teams would play the other Conference twice, the other Division within their Conference 3 times, and the teams in their own division 4 or 5 times (to make the total equal 82 games).

Is this fair to the teams in the 16 team Conference? Are there secret expansion plans in the West? Will it be harder for the Leafs to make the playoffs?

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=657635#&navid=nhl-search
http://www.cbc.ca/m/touch/sports/sp...hl-realignment-donald-fehr-consent-nhlpa.html

 

[someMidTowner]

I think the real issue at hand is somehow getting Detroit into the Eastern Conference. Their players and extremely loyal fans suffer from having frequent late-evening/night games due to playing EVERY away game in a different time zone. Even if the result is more teams in the EC (read more competition for the Leafs), it is necessary for the good of the league. Plus, hasn't Detroit suffered enough in every other department?

As for the proposed new playoff format, they tried to pass that last season and I am pretty sure the board rejected it....wonder why they suddenly want to try this again.

Now, addressing the "secret" expansion in the west....for some time it has been speculated that Kansas City and Seattle are on the shortlist, in fact the former has had an NHL-ready arena since 2007, while the latter has submitted a string of proposals over the years, including this recent one. In the east, however, we have Quebec working on an area, so this could pan out any number of ways

 

[ShonTron]

They should rename the divisions, otherwise I like the plan. Why, for example, is Boston in Central and Columbus in Atlantic?

 

[someMidTowner]

The divisions have always been a mess. The Eastern and Western Conferences used to be named The Prince of Wales Conference and The Clarence Campbell Conference, owing to the lack of teams distributed in the western and southern US. I think if the WC expands by 2 teams, it would make sense to rename the divisions in the same manner the old conferences were named - after people, not sloppily assembled geographic areas

 

[BurlOak]

As for the proposed new playoff format, they tried to pass that last season and I am pretty sure the board rejected it....wonder why they suddenly want to try this again.

It was actually rejected by the NHLPA. Just prior to the contract expiration (and the lockout), the players did not want to co-operate with anything that the NHL board wanted. At that time, the proposal was to have the 2-8 team divisions in the West instead of the East, plus the playoff format was just the top four teams in each division. Now the playoffs would be the top 3 in each division, plus 2 wildcards from each division. One wildcard team would be put in each division and the first 2 playoff rounds would be within the division, then the 2 division winners meet in the semi-finals.

The big flaw of this is that invariably one division is stronger than the other. This happened back in the 1980's when the Norris division was much weaker than the Smythe. Winnipeg, and ussually Calgary were eliminated within their division by the Oilers despite the fact that they were better than any team in the Norris. In the past decade, the SE division has ussually been much weaker as well. I can see the 3rd place team in the stronger division deliberately shooting for the #4 spot so they can cross over to the other division.

With 8 teams in each division (as opposed to 5 back in the 1980's), the playoff matchups will still not produce the same rivalries that occurred in the 1980's. I would rather see deserving teams meet in the playoffs. Just rank the teams from 1 through 8 and let the top play the bottom. No high seeding for division winners - the weaker division winner already has the advantage of playing more games against the weaker opponents. In the semi-finals, I would put all remaining teams together and rank them 1 through 4. Again, this helps ensure that the most deserving (i.e. 2 best) teams meet in the finals. If the two best teams are in the same conference, they should meet in the finals and not the semi-finals - in which case the finals would be a let-down.