Realignment plan

[brynec]

The vote, which required a two-thirds majority of the League's 30 governors, passed on the first of two days of meetings here at The Inn at Spanish Bay. The League's new structure will go into effect starting next season.

The makeup of the yet-to-be-named four conferences is as follows:

* New Jersey, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Washington and Carolina

* Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Buffalo, Florida and Tampa Bay

* Detroit, Columbus, Nashville, St. Louis, Chicago, Minnesota, Dallas and Winnipeg

* Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Colorado

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=604852

[JPonder94]

[STLADOGG]

Playoff system??

[theohall]

The top four teams in each Conference qualify for the Stanley Cup Playoffs. The first-place team would play the fourth-place team; the second-place team would play the third-place team. The four respective Conference champions would meet in the third round of the Playoffs, with the survivors playing for the Stanley Cup.

Note: There will be four conferences without divisions.

It is essentially divisional playoffs with the winners facing off in a four team tournament. However, because they are calling them conferences, they can re-seed based on overall NHL record, a big change, for the semi-final and Stanley Cup Final.

[philco_3]

Hmmm...I kinda like this.

[STLADOGG]

Makes the games against the conference teams a lot more important...btw ProngerBlues44 did you have any scenario exactly like this on your website?

[KPFBlue]

I don't hate it. It just sucks that we have to compete with 8 in the conference instead of 7.

I do like the home and home though

Seems more like baseball now, where if your conference sucks, you get an automatic pass to the playoffs. (See: Central Division) I realize that's how it might be currently, with east/west, but now it will be multiplied x2

[cardsfan04]

I don't hate it. It makes pretty much no sense to me though to not flip-flop Colorado and Winnipeg. Put those 4 Canadian teams together. And, keeping Colorado with Detroit makes sense too.

[WaukeeBlues]

I'll be honest: I DO hate it.

First off and most importantly: Why do the "Western" two conferences have 16 teams and the East has 14? Yea that's fair. It's like in the MLB National Central with 6 teams when a Division out West has 4. So the Blues (and everyone in the West) has essentially two more teams to beat out to make the playoffs than the Eastern teams do? Any way you slice it, two conferences have an extra team than everyone else. I f*cking hate it in baseball and I hate it here. That's a crock of sh*t. You have an even number of teams. Make it fair. Sorry for the language but that just burns me.

Second: What's with the alignments in the east? It's some disgusting hybrid of the Southeast Division + Atlantic and SE/NE for the two conferences. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Why even bother aligning geographically? F*ck it, let's put LA in the same conference against Florida to encourage cross-country rivalries. It's the same thing putting Tampa and Ottawa in the same conference. This is BLATANT NHL favoritism to their pretty-boy teams and rivalries that they want to develop: Philly, Pitt, NY and Washington. Only way they could make sure Pitt and Washington got in the same conference was to have it make no sense. Well, congratulations Bettman, mission accomplished. I'm shocked they didn't throw Detroit in there. I really am. Detroit, Pitt AND Washington in the same conference? That's like Bettman's wet dream. I'm just thrilled that I'm going to be force-fed the Washington/Pittsburgh rivalry for the remaining careers of Crosby and Ovechkin. Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

Only thing I like is the playoff structure itself with the conferences battling out who gets to the final four. Encourages conference rivalries.

That's it, that's the only positive thing I can say about the alignment.

All in all I don't know they should even be making this drastic of a change with Phoenix still on the ropes. So what happens if Phoenix packs up and moves to (just an example to demonstrate my point) Quebec next season? We get to do this all over again? That's fantastic. Sweet. Good job NHL. Shoulda just swapped Nashville for Winnipeg, Winnipeg for Minnesota and called it a day

</negative nancy>

[Ruutu15]

I love it...LOVE it, except for the last part. I don't like the elimination of conferences as we know them. I was hoping that we would see4 divisions and a pre-1993 playoff format, and to an extent we are, but I hate that you can have two (current) Eastern or Western teams in the cup finals. Have a divisional playoff in the first 2 rounds, a conference playoff in the 3rd, and the Cup final between the winners of the conference finals.

[glen a richter]

Can we call the divisions the Patrick, Adams, Norris and Smythe?

signed,

Traditionalist

[Oaklandblue]

I will fully support any realignment plan that can help us win the Cup.

[ibldbl]

What about the All Star Game? They going to have four teams on the ice?

[F Keenan]

I'll be honest: I DO hate it.

First off and most importantly: Why do the "Western" two conferences have 16 teams and the East has 14? Yea that's fair. It's like in the MLB National Central with 6 teams when a Division out West has 4. So the Blues (and everyone in the West) has essentially two more teams to beat out to make the playoffs than the Eastern teams do? Any way you slice it, two conferences have an extra team than everyone else. I f*cking hate it in baseball and I hate it here. That's a crock of sh*t. You have an even number of teams. Make it fair. Sorry for the language but that just burns me.

Baseball has fixed it with Houston joining the American League in 2013. Keep in mind, your beloved Brewers caused that mess.

All in all I don't know they should even be making this drastic of a change with Phoenix still on the ropes. So what happens if Phoenix packs up and moves to (just an example to demonstrate my point) Quebec next season? We get to do this all over again? That's fantastic. Sweet. Good job NHL. Shoulda just swapped Nashville for Winnipeg, Winnipeg for Minnesota and called it a day

</negative nancy>

The whole point of leaving the conferences lopsided is so that when the Coyotes leave, and they most likely will (Either Quebec City or Toronto), they can join Montréal, Toronto, Ottawa, Boston, Buffalo, Florida, and Tampa Bay in the same conference.

[cardsfan04]

Second: What's with the alignments in the east? It's some disgusting hybrid of the Southeast Division + Atlantic and SE/NE for the two conferences. There's no rhyme or reason to it. Why even bother aligning geographically? F*ck it, let's put LA in the same conference against Florida to encourage cross-country rivalries. It's the same thing putting Tampa and Ottawa in the same conference. This is BLATANT NHL favoritism to their pretty-boy teams and rivalries that they want to develop: Philly, Pitt, NY and Washington. Only way they could make sure Pitt and Washington got in the same conference was to have it make no sense. Well, congratulations Bettman, mission accomplished. I'm shocked they didn't throw Detroit in there. I really am. Detroit, Pitt AND Washington in the same conference? That's like Bettman's wet dream. I'm just thrilled that I'm going to be force-fed the Washington/Pittsburgh rivalry for the remaining careers of Crosby and Ovechkin. Although I suppose I shouldn't be surprised.

I would have made that conference exactly the same as they did. If you're doing realignment into 7-8 team conferences, it makes sense to put 7 teams that are that close together geographically in the same conference. Sure, it makes the Florida teams go way north which is unfortunate. But, I think that makes more sense than splitting up the teams that are all real close geographically.

[gaijin]

Just name the conferences East 1, East 2, West 1, and West 2. That's essentially what they are. That's the only way the All-Star game will work, anyway (as previously alluded to).

Not sold on the playoff structure, either. I do like the conference series, but like it was mentioned above, if these are 4 separate, "equal" conferences, you could have 2 "western" or 2 "eastern" teams in the Cup Finals. How does Blackhawks vs. Red Wings for the Cup sound to you? Or Penguins vs. Capitals? Or is there some stipulation that a "western" team must play an "eastern" team for the Cup Final?

Also, I'm going to miss #8 seed upsets of the #1 seed. Under the current format, with only 4 teams from each conference, the biggest upset possible is a #4 knocking off a #1. Which, considering the points required to be a top-4 team in these conferences, won't be that big of an upset to begin with.

We'll see how things settle, I suppose, but right now I mostly agree with WaukeeBlues. Dislike.

[kodos]

I think having uneven conference is a hot load of crap.

It's completely unfair and I do not like it one bit. As a team that will probably be fighting for that last spot for the foreseeable future, having 13% more teams in your division is a big handicap. A huge handicap.

Why is it that anytime the NHL comes up with some new crap it always hurts the Blues? Of course the Blues end up in an 8 team conference. Of course they do.

And when Phoenix moves, it won't help them in any way, because they will still be in a bullshit unfair 8 team conference.

It's shit.

[kodos]

Any team that misses the playoffs while having more points then a team that makes it in a 7 team conference should get bonus draft picks between the first and second round.

Have I mentioned that I think this is unfair bullshit? Screw the NHL and their blatent East Coast bias. Screw the Eastern conference teams. They already have sweet travel schedules, so why are they always bending over to kiss their asses?

Screw those teams. Let them have the 8 team divisions.

[TheoSqua]

The easy way to fix this is to have conference umbrellas and wildcard spots.

Basically instead of the top 4 in points get into each divisional playoff round it's the top 3. Then one 8 team and one 7 team conference are pooled together and the 2 remaining teams with the highest points from those two conferences gain the final 2 playoff spots. The down side is occasionaly you'd have a team from an Eastern Conference gaining berth into a western conference playoff. But I actually think that'd be pretty interesting.

Here's an example:

Eastern 1 Standings:
New Jersey 102
Philly 95
Pittsburgh 94
NYR 92
NYI 90
WAS 88
CAR 60

Western 1 Standings:
St. Louis 164
Winnipeg 110
Dallas 105
Minnesota 98
Nashville 94
Columbus 90
Chicago 40
Detroit 2

St Louis, Winnipeg, and Dallas all get in for gettin the top three (In the Eastern it's New Jersey, Philly, and Pittsburgh). The next highest point totals are Minnesota and Nashville, so they get in with Minnesota going into the opposite division since they have most points (thus penalizing the conference with the least overall points).

So the playoff bracket would look like:
St. Louis vs Nashville
Winnipeg vs Dallas

New Jersey vs Minnesota
Pittsburg vs Philly

Once Phoenix moves over to the eastern conference you could use West 1 and West 2 for this without it being so strange.

[PGABluesFan]

Brilliant point results for STL amd Detroit in that example.