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Monday, 27 June 2011 12:00

Written by Seth Rorabaugh

One of the more intriguing pieces of news to come out of the draft weekend was that the NHL is seriously considering scrapping its six-division format and lumping everyone into four big divisions. Two would have eight teams while the other two would have seven.

Additionally, the divisions would be based heavily on time zones.

With that in mind, here are the divisions we would propose:

(Click here for a larger version of the graphic.)

-Pardon the bland red "X" for the Jets. Our Microsoft Paint skills are limited.

-Assuming your a Penguins fan, the biggest thing that stand out there is the idea of grouping Pittsburgh in a division with Sunbelt teams. While the idea of the Panthers and Penguins being division rivals might seem foreign or unnatural, it's hardly unprecedented. The Penguins used to be in the Norris Division with the Canadiens, Whalers, Red Wings and the Kings.

-Under this proposal, the Penguins would maintain their intense rivalries with the Flyers and Capitals. If anything, their rivalry with the Capitals under this set-up would get even hotter with the potential for a division title on the line.

-If you suspect the Penguins' long-standing rivalries with former Patrick Division foes such as the Devils, Islanders or Rangers would suffer from being in different divisions, we would point out that the Penguins and Capitals are still fierce rivals today despite competing in different divisions.

-Additionally, lumping the Penguins and Capitals with teams like the Panthers and Blue Jackets would benefit ticket sales for those teams. Markets like Buffalo, Montreal and Toronto will routinely sell out regardless of the opponent.

-The Red Wings, Blue Jackets and Predators have each pushed the league for a move to the Eastern Conference for a variety of reasons. Mostly, it would cut down on travel and boost local television ratings with fewer late-night games on the West coast. Each team has a case, but the Blue Jackets need it the most. With a relatively younger expansion franchise still trying to establish itself in its market, having upwards of 16 games a season start at 9 p.m. or later on Eastern Time is brutal with regards to television ratings.

-The Red Wings have just as big of a case to move to the Eastern Conference, but playing all those late night games for almost 30 years hasn't exactly hurt "Hockeytown." The Red Wings are one of the most recognizable brands in the sport and are routinely one of the biggest draws in terms of television ratings in the United States. They can afford to stay in the Western Conference much more than the Blue Jackets.

-The Predators are a young franchise in a newer market just like the Blue Jackets, but they're in the central time zone. Their West Coast games start at 8 p.m. and 9 p.m. Central Time. It's not an ideal situation, but it's not nearly as bad as what the Blue Jackets have to contend with.

-Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson told Craig Custance of The Sporting News he hopes the NHL would be open to having 16 teams in the Eastern Conference with only 14 in the Western Conference. We simply don't see how that could happen from a competitive balance standpoint. It would make reaching the postseason immensely easier for a Western Conference team.

-Scheduling might be the biggest puzzle. Currently, you play

Division foes - 6 games each (24 total)
Non-division conference foes - 4 games each (40 total)
Non-conference foes - at least 1 game each (15 total)
"Wild card" games for home-and-home series with non-conference foes - 3 games each.

-With two divisions with eight teams, would playing everyone in your division six time present any sort of competitive advantage or disadvantage to the division with just seven teams?

-Could you play each team in your conference four times regardless of division? That would account for 56 of your 82 games. Assuming your played all 15 teams in the other conference at least once, that would give you 71 games. Could those remaining nine games be used as "wild card" games for home-and-home series with teams from the other conference?

Comments (18)

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written by Lili, June 27, 2011 - 12:23 PM

Love the map! Who'd you steal that from :-)

It would take time but new division rivals would develop. Not sure if I like Ovi in our division only cause I think it makes it less special when Sid & Ovi play. Not that it really is as much anymore. It would make it nicer to take a Florida trip during the season since there would be 3 chances to do so.

Agree with the Red Wings not needing to move to the East, but why realign at all if not to move Wings/Preds to the east. Just leave it the way it is now and swap out Winnipeg for Columbus.

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written by Matt Eager, June 27, 2011 - 12:28 PM

Seth, first of all, I really like the divisions you've outlined above. Some proposals I've seen have been... nuttier.

Second, the impact on the schedule; let's set aside the 15 out-of-conference games, as playing every team in the league is decidedly better than the "interleague play" format of baseball. With 67 games left, it could look something like this:

7-team division (8-team division)

Division opponents: 5 games against every team - 30 (35)
Other division in conference: 4 games against every team - 32 (2

After considering conference opponents, you can see that the 7-team division clubs have 5 games left for scheduling, and the 8-division clubs have 4. You could use these games to augment rivalries, like adding one of each to Pens-Flyers and Pens-Caps. Then you can use the remainder to complete home-and-homes against the same-numbered division from the other conference.

It's obviously more complicated than the current system, of which I'm a fan, but it's the best I could come up with.

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written by Matt Eager, June 27, 2011 - 12:33 PM

For some reason, a smiley face with sunglasses appeared where I wrote "28". My mistake.

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written by kpa42, June 27, 2011 - 12:42 PM

I don't know if I care for the massive re-alignment plan. I feel I prefer the conservative approach of just swapping the Jackets and the Jets. But I understand the league wants to maximize television ratings and whatnot. I don't see Detroit NOT coming East. It's just too big of an oppurtunity to please NBC. I have a feeling it may go something as you've laid out here, but instead of Nashville, it will be Detroit coming east.

As far as the playoffs, hell if I know. They need to keep the number of teams in each conference even unless they just directly do the top 16 in the league. But if they do that then the only reason to have conferences at all is for scheduling/tv/travel purposes. So who knows.

I am torn between seeing this being a great chance to clean up some of the scheduling/balance issues in the league and seeing this as a chance for the bigwigs running the show to soil themselves yet again.

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written by Uli, June 27, 2011 - 02:14 PM

Times zones are a very good aspect, but traveling must be another one depending on the schedule. I guess every member of the Pens team rather travels to New York than the long-distance flight (attention - European standards!) to Miami more often. Also should traveling costs be a factor in decisions like this. The one who pays for that at the end is the fan by higher tickets prices. Not to speak of environmental aspects connected to all the flying.

I would leave everything like it is right now and just switch CBJ and WPG.

Conferences with different numbers of teams? Whose idea was that? Bettman or Campbell?

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written by shifty1jl, June 27, 2011 - 03:56 PM

whatever the realignment is, I guarantee that the Pens and Caps will be in the same division. If there is a way to increase the number of Pens/Caps games in a season, Bettman will surely jump at that.

Unfortunately, I don't see the Caps as a rival to the Pens (Caps fans obviously have a different opinion). I would hate to see the NHL ruin the Pens rivalries with the Devils, and Flyers, just so they can put 6 Pens/Caps games on NBC.

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written by trgagen, June 27, 2011 - 05:07 PM

Your alignment makes too much sense. This will never happen.

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written by belial1134, June 27, 2011 - 05:08 PM

I know it won't happen but I wish the Penguins would be in the same division as the Blues. Living in St Louis, I would love to be able to see the Penguins in person more often.

The Penguins and Cardinals are in the same division but I can't stand baseball, but why couldn't the two cities share the division for hockey?

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written by belial1134, June 27, 2011 - 05:09 PM

Oops, obviously I meant the Pirates and Cardinals share the same division...got the Penguins on the brain

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written by Iceburgh84, June 27, 2011 - 05:32 PM

Love your idea for the alignment. I wonder how playoffs would be formatted.

Also, if we're going to 4 divisions instead of 6, can we get the names Smythe, Norris, Patrick, and Adams back, instead of the bland names we've dealt with since the mid-90s?

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written by jethro, June 27, 2011 - 08:08 PM

Fine with 4 divisions.

Fine with [appropriate] realignment. Seth's proposal makes as much sense as any.

Absolutely opposed to 16 teams in one conference and 14 in the other. Baseball is currently trying to get itself out of that situation, realizing it is fundamentally unfair. The NHL doesn't have the interleague issues, so I can't imagine why they would consider a 16/14 split. Terrible idea.

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written by 54fighting, June 27, 2011 - 08:39 PM

Keeping the rivalries are critical; however, your configuration of lumping the northeast teams in one conference gives them a great advantage over the rest of the league by minimizing their travel within division. My suggestion would be to make the two eastern conferences as follows: Canadians, Bruins, Rangers, Devils, Islanders, Hurricanes, Panthers. The second eastern conference would be Senators, Maple Leafs, Sabres, Penguins, Flyers, Capitals, Blue Jackets, Lightning. This would even out the long distance traveling for all the divisions and it would keep key rivalries intact. One additional change would be to grant the Red Wings their wish to move to the east and switch the Blue Jackets to the west. This move would make a great division.

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written by Sippy41, June 27, 2011 - 08:55 PM

Is that supposed to be a jet???? Hahahaha

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written by jameshutton, June 27, 2011 - 09:02 PM

However, they do it, just don't have intra-division teams play each other 8 times.

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written by mackdorg, June 27, 2011 - 09:28 PM

So what happens if the Coyotes can't be salvaged in the desert? Hulsizer has reportedly pulled out, so they could be on the move next summer if things continue to fall apart there. I imagine they would stay in the west somewhere, but it might mess up any plan they're currently considering.

The unbalanced divisions of 8s and 7s sounds suspicious. Are they paving the way for 2 more expansion teams down the road to fill out the divisions of 7? There's no shortage of suitors, including Kansas City, Las Vegas, Quebec, Hamilton, Hartford and maybe Portland. I could see the Coyotes ending up in KC or Vegas, which would keep the west numbers stable.

If they did end up expanding by 2 teams, I'd rather see 4-team divisions, with 4 home-ice division winning seeds for the playoffs in each 16-team conference.

Plus, it would finally put to bed any complaints that the regular season doesn't mean anything in the NHL. With half of a 32-team league not making the playoffs, those regular season standings would be far more important than they used to be.

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written by ppirilla, June 27, 2011 - 10:52 PM

Perhaps I misunderstood things when I saw this before, but I thought the plan had been to all but scrap conferences and go with divisional playoffs -- the top four teams from each division make the playoffs, and the first two rounds are purely divisional. The conference distinction would exist for minor schedule tweaking and to determine which teams would play in the the third round of the playoffs.

If this is the case, then things will always be slightly unbalanced, but it would make no difference if the 'east' were bigger than the 'west.' Let Detroit slide into the 'southeast;' it will give fans there one less thing to complain about...

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written by Paps37, June 27, 2011 - 11:06 PM

I understand you have 4 divisions, but combined the entire eastern conference looks like the dick conference.

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written by GenoSid, June 28, 2011 - 06:09 AM

Why build a system that is unfair from the ground up?

The Western teams will have a 1 in 14 chance of making the playoffs while the Eastern teams have a 1 in 16 chance.

I don't want to do the math, but that clearly makes winning the Stanley Cup easier from the West.

Seth's map utilized the unfairness to aid the Pens, putting us in the smallest and weakest division, but it's unlikely to occur that way. And unfairness is unfairness.

I see nothing wrong with the current setup.

Swap Dallas for Nashville in the central and move Nashville into the SE division.

Done.

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