Saturday, February 23, 2013

NHL Realignment

 

Elliotte Friedman mentioned during the Satellite Hotstove on Hockey Night in Canada about the potential changes to the divisions for next year.

Winnipeg needs to move to a more western schedule while Detroit and Columbus have been begging for an eastern schedule for a while now.

Here was the potential changes:

Conference A - Detroit, Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Toronto

Conference B - Carolina, Columbus, New Jersey, New York, New York, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington

Conference C - Chicago, Colorado, Dallas, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis, Winnipeg

Conference D - Anaheim, Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Jose

 

Although this is a lot better for the Jets, Red Wings and Blue Jackets, I can’t imagine Florida and Tampa Bay are to thrilled about it.

It seems like the NHL is wanting to keep rivals together as much as possible. Philadelphia and Pittsburgh need to be together, but they still want a Penguins/Capitals rivalry. And obviously they can’t split up the Rangers, Devils and Islanders.

I think the biggest problem with the realignment is the idea of East/West conferences. If you group teams based on location/time zone, it makes more sense, at least to me.

With the current teams, you could break down the league into 5 – 6 team divisions.

Division A – Anaheim, Colorado, LA, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver

Division B – Calgary, Dallas, Edmonton, Minnesota, St Louis, Winnipeg

Division C – Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Nashville, Ottawa, Toronto

Division D – Carolina, Florida, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington

Division E – Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, New Jersey, New York, New York

For the regular season, teams would play within their division 8 times (4 home/4 away), for 40 games, then 2 times against the rest of the league (home/away) for 36 games. With the remaining 6 games they can be saved for teams outside the division with a rivalry, ex Toronto/Montreal or a new playoff rivalry from the previous season(3 teams, 2 times a year, home/away).

Playoffs seem to were it gets tricky. How do you run playoffs when there is an odd amount of divisions. But like I said before, forget the east/west (for a minute).

For playoffs, take the top 16 teams in points. 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15 etc. Tie breakers can be determined by best case scenario for distance.

Travel will probably be increased for the playoffs, but after a regular season with less travel, it is probably still less for the entire season. For playoff matchups that do require lots of travel, the team with the home ice advantage can have the option of 2-2-1-1-1 or 2-3-2 format.

With the potential changes that the NHL appears to be wanting to change. There should be no reason why Tampa Bay and Florida are playing the majority of their games in the Northeast, it is really not that much different from what Winnipeg is doing now playing in the Southeast division. The NHL seems to want to forget about the North/South, when they should be forgetting about East/West.

 

This realignment will also help for if/when the NHL decides to relocate Phoenix and expand to 32 teams. There is a lot of talk about Seattle and Quebec City getting a team, also another team in the Toronto Area.

Go to am 8 - 4 team division league (like NFL). Again forget East/West

Division A – Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle, Vancouver

Division B – Anaheim, Colorado, LA, San Jose

Division C – Dallas, Minnesota, St Louis, Winnipeg

Division D – Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, Toronto Area

Division E – Columbus, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington

Division F – Boston, Montreal, Ottawa, Quebec City

Division G – Buffalo, New Jersey, New York, New York

Division H – Carolina, Florida, Nashville, Tampa Bay

Regular Season, increase the division rivalries, 9 games interdivision for 27 games, and 2 games against the rest of the league or 56 games. Yes, that is an 83 game regular season, I don’t think more game will matter.

Playoffs, top 2 division leaders play against each other in the first round, then next 2 rounds can be determined by points (tie breaker to location and same rules as above, home team having choice of format).

Obviously this 8 division is somewhat fantasy as there are 3 different teams with two of them being expansion teams. I would say, even if this is the direction the NHL is heading, it could be a few years before they get to this point.