Calgary and Edmonton only play 3x this season. Is this enough evidence this schedule/division format needs an overhaul?

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Does anyone else feel like the fact we get the Battle of Alberta only 3x this season(Calgary only travels to Edmonton once this year) is kind of ridiculous? I feel like the NHL doesn't do nearly enough of a job to help build and sustain true rivalries in the league anymore.


Personally if I was in charge or had a say in the NHLs decision making this is what I would do. Overhaul the 4 division format and replace it with 8 divisions, 4 teams per division. Keep the conferences in tact in terms of playoffs however. Seed each of the 4 division winners as 1-4 in the playoffs, and then leave 4 "Wild card" playoff spots for any number of teams from each division. So hypothetically you could have just one team make the playoffs from 1 division. In theory you could even have all 4 teams make the playoffs in one division.

- Each team plays every other team in the league twice, a home and away(2x31 = 62 games).

- Then, you play every team in your conference one extra time(So 15 more gams)

- Finally inside of your division, you play the other 3 teams an additional 2 times(So 3 teams x 2 more games = 6 times).

Total breakdown would be 5 games against your divisional opponents. 3 Games against Conference opponents. 2 games against opponents in the other conference.

In total it would be an 83 game season. 1 game more then the current 82 game season, but with way more emphasis on playing teams inside your own division. Battle of Alberta would happen 5 times. Battle of Ontario happens 5 times... etc. etc.

I just think right now the 8 team divisions are kind of boring and dont lend themselves to rivalries because you play your division so little compared to 15 years ago.


What does everyone else think? I also think the league tries too hard to force certain matchups in the playoffs as well. IMO putting more focus on regular season rivalry matchups and then letting the playoffs just play out more naturally would be much better. Then, when you do get a Toronto/Ottawa or Seattle/Vancouver or Edmonton/Calgary matchup in the playoffs its that much more tense because of the regular season rivalry.

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[I Hate Blake Coleman]

It's a bit f***ed. Three games is all they could manage? Five would have been ideal.

 

[Ginger Papa]

Completely agree my Avs friend. We need more Division Rival Games during the Regular Season, not less.

Hopefully the Schedule makers at the NHL Office figure this out in the near future.

 

[snipes]

Ridiculous there’s only 3 games.

 

[Mulletman]

No it's important that all teams play eachother as much as possible. Otherwise player stats aren't as accurate. Imagine if one division is super tough with good defence and another divison is really weak with one great team. Then we could end up with a situation were a McDavid is stuck in a tough division were it's way harder to score, while a Crosby is able to pad his stats in a much weaker division. And in the long run their stats will look much closer than they should if things are more equal...

 

[Larry Hanson]

Pretty stupid, these rivalries are always the best games. There is a real hatred between these teams.

 

[BobColesNasalCavity]

And none after December 27... someone needs to be fired

 

[Larry Hanson]

No it's important that all teams play eachother as much as possible. Otherwise player stats aren't as accurate.

I don't really care about player stats as much as seeing great hockey.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Pretty stupid, these rivalries are always the best games. There is a real hatred between these teams.

Yep exactly.

And honestly a lot of the divisions really write themselves and the rivalries are ready and waiting to be re-ignited.

 

[JPeeper]

Went from 10 (or was it 9?) meetings in the COVID Cup to 3 meetings only 2 seasons later. Brutal

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

No it's important that all teams play eachother as much as possible. Otherwise player stats aren't as accurate. Imagine if one division is super tough with good defence and another divison is really weak with one great team. Then we could end up with a situation were a McDavid is stuck in a tough division were it's way harder to score, while a Crosby is able to pad his stats in a much weaker division. And in the long run their stats will look much closer than they should if things are more equal...

It would be an extremely small difference. Right now the schedule looks like this:

Home/Away with the 16 teams in the other conference(So 32 games). Then inside of your own conference you play the 8 teams in the other division 3 times(24 games) and then you play 5 teams in your division 4 times, and the other 2 teams in the division 3 times(So 26 games).

It would be a very small difference. 24/31 teams in the league literally wouldn't change at all. 4 teams you would play against 1 less time, and then the 3 teams in your division you would end up playing 1-2 more times.

Extremely minor change to what's going on now, but one that creates substantially more impactful rivalry games.

 

[Mr Positive]

Yes 3 games and meanwhile there are 2 games vs eastern conference teams. It's like there isn't even conferences

 

[Bounces R Way]

NHL schedulers assembling the season

 

[2023FriendshipTour]

I hate Edmonton but I wanna play them 4 times. While we play the Kraken 4 times.

 

[Mr Positive]

And none after December 27... someone needs to be fired

To me that fact is just a natural consequence of having so few games vs rivals. We had one of the three already. Just two left so if they are in December or March it makes little difference imo

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Went from 10 (or was it 9?) meetings in the COVID Cup to 3 meetings only 2 seasons later. Brutal

56 games, and 7 teams in the division so 6 opponents. So they would have played 9 games against 4 opponents and 10 games against 2 opponents... So yeah I'm assuming it was 10 games of Oilers/Flames.

That's obviously overkill... But I do think the covid divisions showed that A) Fans really want to see more rivalry games and B) Teams will naturally create rivalries with teams if they play them enough in a season.

I remember Colorado/Arizona having a fairly nasty rivalry that year after 8 games against each other. Colorado/Minnesota continued its nastiness that season as well.

 

[Three On Zero]

Eh, these rivalries really get watered down and neutered. Would much rather see how the guys perform across the league rather than watching the same content over and over

 

[Mikeshane]

I like the schedule as it is it's just about as good as you can reasonably get. I have no problem with some flexibility in the schedule though where you can have a game or two extra against a rival. I absolutely with all my being don't want to see a bunch of games against the same divisional teams over and over and over again, BOOOOOOOORING!

 

[Mulletman]

It would be an extremely small difference. Right now the schedule looks like this:

Home/Away with the 16 teams in the other conference(So 32 games). Then inside of your own conference you play the 8 teams in the other division 3 times(24 games) and then you play 5 teams in your division 4 times, and the other 2 teams in the division 3 times(So 26 games).

It would be a very small difference. 24/31 teams in the league literally wouldn't change at all. 4 teams you would play against 1 less time, and then the 3 teams in your division you would end up playing 1-2 more times.

Extremely minor change to what's going on now, but one that creates substantially more impactful rivalry games.

Well how about playing all 7 teams in your confernece 4 times. That way we'll get back to 84 games, like it used to be before they cut those 2 extra games so players could get some extra rest.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Eh, these rivalries really get watered down and neutered. Would much rather see how the guys perform across the league rather than watching the same content over and over

But again... It would be such a minor difference compared to the schedule right now.

24/31 of your teams opponents games would literally not change at all.

Well how about playing all 7 teams in your confernece 4 times. That way we'll get back to 84 games, like it used to be before they cut those 2 extra games so players could get some extra rest.

That would be perfectly fine as well IMO.

Though I also think the 8 team divisions is lame myself. I think smaller divisions is much better, like the NHL with divisions of 4.


But yeah that would be a decent fix as well.

 

[Craig Button]

That's not fair for the Flames.
They should be allowed to win 5 games against the oilers

 

[KirkAlbuquerque]

not everyone cares about the BoA and the current playoff format more than makes up for fewer regular season meetings.

After the 2021 division-only schedule i'd be happy with the Rangers only every playing West coast teams for a whole year lol.

 

[LightningStorm]

Such a travesty. Battle of Alberta is a great rivalry for a neutral fan like myself to tune into. What's especially tragic is I know Alberta has been waiting for the rivalry to get this heated again since the 80's ended, and now only 3 RS games? Shameful.

I've also thought about the 8 division format but I always run into geographic problems in the NE US/Eastern Canada when thinking about how to form the divisions.

 

[Pierce Hawthorne]

Such a travesty. Battle of Alberta is a great rivalry for a neutral fan like myself to tune into. What's especially tragic is I know Alberta has been waiting for the rivalry to get this heated again since the 80's ended, and now only 3 RS games? Shameful.

I've also thought about the 8 division format but I always run into geographic problems in the NE US/Eastern Canada when thinking about how to form the divisions.

Funny enough I think the hardest area is the South West and Central area.

The East at least IMO is pretty easy.


- Toronto/Ottawa/Montreal/Buffalo
- Florida/Tampa/Carolina/Washington
- NYI/NYR/NJD/Boston
- Detroit/Columbus/Philly/Pittsburgh

Then in the West you have one easy one:

- Calgary/Edmonton/Vancouver/Seattle

After that it gets funky. The 3 California teams make up 3/4ths of one division but do you stick Arizona or Vegas with them? Colorado sticks out like a sore thumb at this point as well. I think the move would be:

- LA/SJS/ANA/Vegas
- Winnipeg/Minnesota/Chicago/ St. Louis
- Arizona/Colorado/Nashville/Dallas


But it's kind of ugly compared to the East.

 

[VaporTrail]

Yepp the new way they make schedules sucks...It totally takes away from good rivalries...let's go back to playing division rivals 7 to 8x a year...you might even see more fights and hitting.... Gasp !