Hi! I'm new here. Here is my suggestion for realignment. With Winnipeg moving to the Western Conference, only Columbus moves to the Eastern Conference and is placed in a division with Pittsburgh. Detroit stays in the Western Conference so it can be together with Chicago and St. Louis but still gets to play more Eastern Time Zone teams. This leaves two 15-team conferences. The schedule is made up by playing five games against teams in your own division (total of 30 in a seven team division, 35 in a eight division). Two games are played against teams in the other three divisions (46 or 44 games). This leaves three extra games for a team in an eight team division and six extra games for a team in a seven team division to make a total of 82 games. No team plays another more than six times. Winnipeg is placed in the Central Division as the only Canadian team but is compensated through its six extra games being played against the six other Canadian teams. This makes the number of games Winnipeg plays against other Canadian teams close to the number of games the other Canadian teams play eachother. Extra games are played between any teams in the league (although mostly between rivals or geographically close teams) and could also be more than one game (but a maximum two) between two teams. I guess it could be unfair with extra games against different teams but the teams should be able to vote before the schedule is made up if it is fair or not. (In today's schedule every team plays three extra games already so not so much change anyway.) Pittsburgh moves to the Northeast but is "compensated" with extra games against Philadelphia and Washington. Detroit gets to play three of its six extra games against Eastern Time Zone teams on the road. (Columbus plays extra games against Central Division teams for my little schedule to work out, could probably be made better) Here is my alignment with the extra games I just made up (I know they are not all the best matchups but you kind of see what I mean). Eastern Conference Northeast Division BOS (BUF, MTL, NYI, NYR, OTT, TOR) BUF (BOS, DET, MTL, NYI, OTT, TOR) CBJ (CHI, DAL, DET, MIN, NSH, STL) MTL (BOS, BUF, OTT, PIT, TOR, WPG) OTT (BOS, BUF, MTL, PIT, TOR, WPG) PIT (MTL, OTT, PHIx2, WSHx2) TOR (BOS, BUF, DET, MTL, OTT, WPG) Atlantic Division CAR (FLA, NSH, TB) FLA (CAR, NSH, TB) NJ (NYR, PHI, WSH) NYI (BOS, BUF, NYR) NYR (BOS, NJ, NYI) PHI (NJ, PITx2) TB (CAR, FLA, NSH) WSH (NJ, PITx2) Western Conference Central Division CHI (CBJ, COL, DAL, DET, MIN, STL) DAL (CBJ, CHI, COL, MIN, NSH, STL) DET (BUF, CBJ, CHI, MIN, STL, TOR) MIN (CBJ, CHI, COL, DAL, DET, STL) NSH (CAR, CBJ, DAL, FLA, STL, TB) STL (CBJ, CHI, DAL, DET, MIN, NSH) WPG (CGY, EDM, MTL, OTT, TOR, VAN) Pacific Division ANA (LA, PHX, SJ) CGY (EDM, VAN, WPG) COL (CHI, DAL, MIN) EDM (CGY, VAN, WPG) LA (ANA, PHX, SJ) PHX (ANA, LA, PHX) SJ (ANA, LA, PHX) VAN (CGY, EDM, WPG)
