The NHL realignment thread

[The_Admiral]

2. I always thought that Boston should be in the NY/NJ/PHI division. Boston / NY / Phi just seem to fit in together, and while I know that they have rivalries with MON and TOR, it just seems to make sense to me to have the major Northeast US cities grouped together. It kind of stinks that the Flyers and Rangers will play the Bruins just as often as they will the Flames.

This is why there should be something between divisional play and cross-country play. Too bad you can't play 2 and 2 against the other "conference" nearby.

[DaytonBlue]

Just saw this new thread so thought I'd add this here too...

***Well you could do something like this...

going into semifinals

winner of 1 vs. 4 series gets the Price of Wales Trophy

winner of 2 vs. 3 series gets the Campbell Bowl

***I'm not too worried about those trophies since the players hardly want to even touch them anymore. They just better not start putting up REGULAR SEASON CONFERENCE CHAMPION banners. If you're going to have division/conference based playoffs, then only the team that wins that should hang a banner.

***I also think the semifinals and final should be a 2-3-2 format if the teams are more than one time zone apart.

[TBGKon]

***I also think the semifinals and final should be a 2-3-2 format if the teams are more than one time zone apart.

Why not, to be fair to all, adopt this for every round.

[cmm]

1. Are these 4 conferences aligned for playoff purposes (i.e. does the winner of the Conf A tourney play Conf B to get to the final?) Or is it just that the winners square off based on a straight 1-4 seeding?

From what I've heard and read, this part hasn't been decided yet. They'll probably re-seed or have A vs. B and C vs. D every year. Bettman told NHL.com that someone even suggested a random drawing for the round of 4. I haven't seen anyone mention having the team with the best record choosing their semifinal opponent, but I think that could be fun.

[The_Admiral]

This is a lot like the "division-emphasizing" scheduling that the NHL had from about 2005-2007, where you'd play 32 games in the division and barely have time for the opposite conference. I expect the Flyers and Bruins to pitch fits a year or two into this about not hosting each other, the Rangers, and the Canadiens enough for their liking, and they'll scrap this like they scrapped the good old "play the Columbus Blue Jackets up to eight times" system.

EDIT: Realization: the Winnipeg Jets will only host other Canadian teams six times a year but load up on home games with Nashville and Dallas. Wear your awkward beveled maple leaf with pride, boys.

[29texan]

I had my own alignment ideas, pretty self-explanitory:

Overall Map

Conferences

[DaytonBlue]

***I also think the semifinals and final should be a 2-3-2 format if the teams are more than one time zone apart.

Why not, to be fair to all, adopt this for every round.

That'd be fine with me too. The 2-2-1-1-1 has always seemed like a lot of extra travel to me.

[pmoehrin]

The total mileage for 29texan alignment is 111245.

The only downside is you have Dallas out in no man's land for no real reason. The two near by teams you have taken care of with Nashville and St. Louis, but after that your next closest team is Tampa Bay and I count five other teams closer to the Stars then that aren't in their conference.

[29texan]

The total mileage for 29texan alignment is 111245.

The only downside is you have Dallas out in no man's land for no real reason. The two near by teams you have taken care of with Nashville and St. Louis, but after that your next closest team is Tampa Bay and I count five other teams closer to the Stars then that aren't in their conference.

Well, when you're kind of dead south/center of the U.S. and there aren't that many close by teams, it's either West or South. And I just picked south.

Of course, if Phoenix is moving, then we'd have no choice BUT to be in the West. And I really hate that, to be honest...

Also, I could probably switch Toronto and Buffalo, but I think it's fine.

[WJMorris3]

We aren't naming a Conference after a probable Nazi sympathizer. Cut it out Will.

It's not like they hadn't done it before.

[rams80]

We aren't naming a Conference after a probable Nazi sympathizer. Cut it out Will.

It's not like they hadn't done it before.

We could at least pretend it was honoring the title, not the person.

[Viper]

Bring on Norris Division 2.0!

Can we assume this means the NHL is committed to the ASG format they introduced last year? Unless they want to have a three-game All-Star mini-tournament, I don't see how they can go back to a conference-based format.

[pmoehrin]

Can we assume this means the NHL is committed to the ASG format they introduced last year? Unless they want to have a three-game All-Star mini-tournament, I don't see how they can go back to a conference-based format.

You know that's something I haven't even thought about with this.

I guess they're going to keep that format. I don't think its terrible. I thought the All-Star draft was pretty cool. They change it every ten years anyway so we may have something completely different in five years anyway.

[DaytonBlue]

Here's one crazy all-star idea: one conference versus three!

Whoever is the host city's conference compiles a team of all-stars vs. the rest of the league.

Likelihood...about zero.

[McCall]

The total mileage for 29texan alignment is 111245.

The only downside is you have Dallas out in no man's land for no real reason. The two near by teams you have taken care of with Nashville and St. Louis, but after that your next closest team is Tampa Bay and I count five other teams closer to the Stars then that aren't in their conference.

Well, when you're kind of dead south/center of the U.S. and there aren't that many close by teams, it's either West or South. And I just picked south.

Of course, if Phoenix is moving, then we'd have no choice BUT to be in the West. And I really hate that, to be honest...

Also, I could probably switch Toronto and Buffalo, but I think it's fine.

Or you can do what the NHL did and put Dallas in a conference with the other teams in their time zone. That's why theirs works much better than yours.

[Viper]

Here's one crazy all-star idea: one conference versus three!

Whoever is the host city's conference compiles a team of all-stars vs. the rest of the league.

Likelihood...about zero.

I'll see your crazy ASG concept and raise you mine: The three-game tournament I mentioned above, but with each game lasting only one 20-minute period, so the whole thing would last about as long as a single regulation game. The first two periods would be the "semifinals" and the third period the "championship". If the semifinal periods end tied, they go straight to a shootout. For the championship period, five-minute OT and then a shootout, as usual. Each conference team would have two lines, two D pairings and two goalies.

I mean, if the NHL insists on continuing this contrived and ultimately meaningless exhibition event in the first place, they might as well go whole hog with it.

[McCall]

They'll probably just do the playground picks like they did this year. Two captains chosen regardless of conference, making picks, also regardless of conference.

[29texan]

The total mileage for 29texan alignment is 111245.

The only downside is you have Dallas out in no man's land for no real reason. The two near by teams you have taken care of with Nashville and St. Louis, but after that your next closest team is Tampa Bay and I count five other teams closer to the Stars then that aren't in their conference.

Well, when you're kind of dead south/center of the U.S. and there aren't that many close by teams, it's either West or South. And I just picked south.

Of course, if Phoenix is moving, then we'd have no choice BUT to be in the West. And I really hate that, to be honest...

Also, I could probably switch Toronto and Buffalo, but I think it's fine.

Or you can do what the NHL did and put Dallas in a conference with the other teams in their time zone. That's why theirs works much better than yours.

Yeah, thanks....

[Stampman]

It makes no sense to me, with a 30 team league, to have uneven conferences/divisions.

I do like that every team visits every other team, but that uneven conference thing is just nonsense.

As is the conference playoff format, as mentioned before.

In the older days the Norris division would still have a team in the final four, when they were a real weak division, and the Smythe division could have 2 or 3 of the top 5 or 6 teams, and only one of them makes it out of the second round. Where's the reward or the sense of that?

The Norris division teams only had to be decent, and they could get three rounds of playoffs.

The Smythe division teams could be great and not get out of the first or second round, but if they played the Norris division teams they would.

When they dumped that set up the game got more competitive.

And seeing the same match ups year after year got boring.

Hopefully Phoenix and/or some other US based team moves and forces them to redo this alignment in a year or two.

Oh well, it's their league.

[pmoehrin]

The total mileage for 29texan alignment is 111245.

The only downside is you have Dallas out in no man's land for no real reason. The two near by teams you have taken care of with Nashville and St. Louis, but after that your next closest team is Tampa Bay and I count five other teams closer to the Stars then that aren't in their conference.

Well, when you're kind of dead south/center of the U.S. and there aren't that many close by teams, it's either West or South. And I just picked south.

Of course, if Phoenix is moving, then we'd have no choice BUT to be in the West. And I really hate that, to be honest...

Also, I could probably switch Toronto and Buffalo, but I think it's fine.

Or you can do what the NHL did and put Dallas in a conference with the other teams in their time zone. That's why theirs works much better than yours.

Yeah, thanks....

I see what your trying to do.

Its tough with any division alignment because no matter what somebody is going to get screwed over. Your screwed over team is the Stars. Mine in what I did earlier was the Flyers.

Life wise style the Dallas pretty similar to most of the teams you have in their conference. If that's what you were going then your set. If geographic is your concern then teams like Colorado, Chicago and Minnesota need to be put in the same division as Dallas. They may not be all that close to them, but those are the closest teams to Dallas and generally speaking from what I've learned with doing these things its the most isolated teams that should be your first priority when doing conference/division alignments.