Kraken Jokes
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- May 28, 2010
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Division Realignment Idea
- Thread starter Kraken Jokes
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Kane One
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Terrible for Detroit, Buffalo, and Toronto to play so many games outside their time zone.
No. The Northern division would be terrible for some teams. No need to have teams in your division who are three time zones away.
Detroit fights for years to get into the eastern conference and then is shoved back west.
HisIceness
This is Hurricanes Hockey
Kraken Jokes
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Time zones are far more important than latitude. This is a non-sensical approach.
Edmonton, Chicago and Buffalo in the same division let alone conference is bonkers and would be a nightmare.
The current alignment is about as good as we are gonna get. I don’t see any issues with it.
Edmonton, Chicago and Buffalo in the same division let alone conference is bonkers and would be a nightmare.
The current alignment is about as good as we are gonna get. I don’t see any issues with it.
Kraken Jokes
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I agree that the Northern Division is rough. Where can the compromise be made? (if you're interested in having this conversation at all)
Golden_Jet
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Too many time zone differences in North.
Going to be hard to improve current divisions.
Going to be hard to improve current divisions.
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Somebody already said it…what are you trying to fix or improve?
kvladimir
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What's you are thinking of as "weird geography" (I'm guessing largely the fact that the Florida teams and Carolina are in different divisions) is actually a measured attempt to balance the number of smaller-market teams with larger-market teams in each division.
Not a perfect balance, obviously, since the Atlantic has 4 original 6 teams, but this is likely one reason the Southeast Division failed (not just lack of success by the teams in that division) - majority of games that are against other teams that are relatively new and don't have much hockey history, but are geographically close.
TBL/FLA vs. WSH/ATL/CAR, as opposed to DET, TOR, MTL, BOS, BUF, OTT, vastly different in terms of appeal to the local fans.
Same with CAR vs. TBL/FLA/WSH/ATL, as opposed to NYR/PHI/NJD/NYI/PIT/WSH/CBJ, much more local market appeal with the New York area teams, and Philadelphia/Pittburgh.
Not a perfect balance, obviously, since the Atlantic has 4 original 6 teams, but this is likely one reason the Southeast Division failed (not just lack of success by the teams in that division) - majority of games that are against other teams that are relatively new and don't have much hockey history, but are geographically close.
TBL/FLA vs. WSH/ATL/CAR, as opposed to DET, TOR, MTL, BOS, BUF, OTT, vastly different in terms of appeal to the local fans.
Same with CAR vs. TBL/FLA/WSH/ATL, as opposed to NYR/PHI/NJD/NYI/PIT/WSH/CBJ, much more local market appeal with the New York area teams, and Philadelphia/Pittburgh.
kvladimir
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That said, division/conference realignment is worth talking about, because there are many different solutions that work in many different (positive and negative) ways, no such thing as "perfect".
For example: now that VGK and SEA are here, the "old" Division alignment of 6 Divisions per conference is actually very appealing, if you're ok with uneven divisions (but a top-8 teams make the playoffs format would equal all the odds of making them anyway):
Pacific: ANA, ARZ, LAK, SJS, VGK (hey, look at that, ARZ has a good division alignment again!
)
Northwest: CGY, COL, EDM, SEA, VAN
Central (6 teams): CHI, DAL, MIN, NSH, STL, WPG
Northeast: BUF, CBJ, DET, OTT, TOR
Atlantic: BOS, CAR, FLA, MTL, TBL (and here I go putting the southeast teams together again, but it's with BOS/MTL, soooo...)
Metro (6 teams): NJD, NYI, NYR, PHI, PIT, WSH (so PIT/CBJ are separated, but CBJ gets DET and other teams more geographically close to them)
For example: now that VGK and SEA are here, the "old" Division alignment of 6 Divisions per conference is actually very appealing, if you're ok with uneven divisions (but a top-8 teams make the playoffs format would equal all the odds of making them anyway):
Pacific: ANA, ARZ, LAK, SJS, VGK (hey, look at that, ARZ has a good division alignment again!
)Northwest: CGY, COL, EDM, SEA, VAN
Central (6 teams): CHI, DAL, MIN, NSH, STL, WPG
Northeast: BUF, CBJ, DET, OTT, TOR
Atlantic: BOS, CAR, FLA, MTL, TBL (and here I go putting the southeast teams together again, but it's with BOS/MTL, soooo...)
Metro (6 teams): NJD, NYI, NYR, PHI, PIT, WSH (so PIT/CBJ are separated, but CBJ gets DET and other teams more geographically close to them)
The current alignment with your traditional two conferences and four divisions is about as good as it’s going to get. It’s also probably the cleanest of any of the major sports leagues - with all the Eastern time zone teams in the East and all the Central, Mountain and Pacific teams in the West. It’s the reason Detroit fought so hard to be in the East, it’s the reason Columbus is in the East and it’s the reason Nashville is in the West/Central and not some “Southeast” division.
The “state of Florida” anomaly is well explained above and still doesn’t break the time zone divisions. I guess you could move Tampa and Florida to the Metro and Pittsburgh and Columbus to the Atlantic or something similar if you are trying to group teams in the SE quadrant but that’s still messy and wasn’t done for the reasons of balance stated.
(Sketched in rough time zones)
The “state of Florida” anomaly is well explained above and still doesn’t break the time zone divisions. I guess you could move Tampa and Florida to the Metro and Pittsburgh and Columbus to the Atlantic or something similar if you are trying to group teams in the SE quadrant but that’s still messy and wasn’t done for the reasons of balance stated.
(Sketched in rough time zones)
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That is an excellent point that I had never considered.
coolboarder
Registered User
If we were to realignment, I would rather removing conference setup. Go with 4 division and schedule matrix would have been 4 games within division and 2 games outside division for total of 82 games. Extra division games would remains division and top 4 makes playoffs.
I would pretty much prefer this 8 divisions of 4 teams each and no conference and first round, top two in each division makes playoffs and first round of the playoffs then go with best non-division matchup record seeded 1-8 regardless of their divisional record since divisional series has been determined already and do not need to carry over to 2nd round of playoffs. Schedule matrix would have been 8 divisional games and 2 non divisional games so that majority of their games would be in their own time zone especially to the Pacific coast teams. This is my preference,.
I would pretty much prefer this 8 divisions of 4 teams each and no conference and first round, top two in each division makes playoffs and first round of the playoffs then go with best non-division matchup record seeded 1-8 regardless of their divisional record since divisional series has been determined already and do not need to carry over to 2nd round of playoffs. Schedule matrix would have been 8 divisional games and 2 non divisional games so that majority of their games would be in their own time zone especially to the Pacific coast teams. This is my preference,.
I kind of miss the old Southeast but it's pretty hard to work things out without screwing Detroit, Columbus, or Canada over again so I've accepted where we're at now. The COVID Central division we were in was kind of fun though.
Golden_Jet
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You need Conferences. The League is never going back to east coast games playing a west coast team in the first 3 rounds. Too many east coast viewers lost for the 10 and 10:30 starts.
You could do the 4 divisions in a Conference, but not sure what the difference would end up being really.
Spargon
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I know people love to dismiss this when they gift the world with their genius of these realignments. But Toronto, Detroit and Columbus all fought to be taken out of divisions that weren't in EST due to travel and start times etc. They WILL NOT accept being put into situations where they will have lots of dumb travel.
This idea is ass. As another poster showed, while not perfect, the current system is about the cleanest it is going to get.
This idea is ass. As another poster showed, while not perfect, the current system is about the cleanest it is going to get.
coolboarder
Registered User
The difference is the schedule matrix during the regular season if you scrap the conference. You reduce the length of travel by going from Central division visiting Pacific division teams twice a year and vice versa (meeting each other 3 times based on rotation). Instead you travel to their cities once a year, reducing a lot of time zone crossing. Let each teams in the Western conference stay in their time zone as much as possible, eliminating 4 extra away games 2 hours apart and have 4 games within Pacific time and the same for Central teams, making a lot of difference in term of energy and travelling.
Therefore, a regional playoff system would work because by the time you meet in final 8 or final 4, you do not have to be limited to conference play with more variety potential match-up that makes no difference to Pacific teams and I'm sure that Central division would absolutely love play against Eastern conference rather than going to Pacific division teams in the Stanley Cup playoffs. If you think this thing, with 8 divisions, you could potential have all-Pacific final which will be great for the game of hockey from 8 divisions setup with no conference. 28 out of 32 possible match-up that is not in division in the playoffs and best team in the NHL meeting in the final rather than from same division. The difference is that you save their travel plans and be able travel 35,000 miles, the same equal amount for Pacific division teams rather than 45,000 miles of being forced to visit their cities one extra games 2 time zones away and/or travel from Northwest to southwest 1,200 miles away between Vancouver to LA.
Oddbob
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This is terrible for the Eastern teams you needlessly moved back to the Western time zone. Things are set up as they are so teams are playing in the closest to correct timezone as they can.
This is terrible for all of Detroit, Toronto, Buffalo and Dallas.
kvladimir
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Interesting to hear a TBL fan say that, since they are one of the teams I figured would hate my 3-conference idea, which emulates the COVID Central Division (though I came up with the idea long before the 2021 season). It goes like this:
Pacific Conference: ANA, ARZ, CGY, COL, EDM, LAK, SJS, SEA, VAN, VGK (10 teams)
Central Conference: CAR, CHI, CBJ, DAL, DET, FLA, MIN, NSH, STL, TBL, WPG (11 teams)
Eastern Conference: BOS, BUF, MTL, NJD, NYI, NYR, OTT, PHI, PIT, TOR, WSH (11 teams)
Schedule for this setup is super easy: each 11-team conference plays 4 games x 10 conference opponents (40), and 2 x 21 non-conference opponents (42) for 82 games. Pacific just has a 5th game (one home, one away) vs 2 of their conference rivals to balance out.
The playoff format would make all the odds equal by having the top 3 Pacific teams, and top 4 Central and Eastern teams get automatic spots, then the next 5 teams by record, as long as no conference exceeds 7 teams in the playoffs total, get the rest. This "range" makes it so that the odds are 3-7/10 (avg 5/10), and 4-7/11 (avg. 5.5/11) every year.
As for working out the uneven pool: you would only ever have these scenarios occur in this setup:
1. A 6/6/4 split, in which all the conferences would pair up teams within themselves, 1 v 6, 2 v 5, and 3 v 4
2. 2 odd conferences (5/5/6, or 7/3/6, or 7/4/5, etc...) which would result in 1 crossover series if it's Pacific/Central or Central/Eastern, or 2 crossovers if it's Pacific and Eastern that are odd-numbered (1 PAC/CEN and 1 CEN/EAST, to minimize time zone travel)
And finally, to prevent the Eastern time-zone teams in the Central conference (DET, CBJ, TBL, FLA, CAR) from having to play crossover series vs Pacific in the 1st 2 rounds, you simply make it so that only the Central time-zone teams (WPG, MIN, CHI, NSH, STL, DAL) are eligible for those crossovers, and same goes for those teams in Eastern Conference crossovers (only the former teams do that). With a 6-5 split in the Central conference on which teams come from which time zones, you would almost always prevent the bad crossovers, unless there are 0 teams from one time zone, which would be rare.
I have some examples if you're curious: 1, 2, 3, 4
BruinsFan37
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Sees Detroit in the West...
Didn't bother looking at the rest, cause It's not going to happen.
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Again the only possible realignment with the Eastern Conference is to have a more north-south alignment, by moving the two Florida teams into the "metro" with probably Detroit and moving the the three NYC teams into the "Atlantic"
There is no realistic realignment with the Western Conference, that's pretty much set.
Didn't bother looking at the rest, cause It's not going to happen.
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Again the only possible realignment with the Eastern Conference is to have a more north-south alignment, by moving the two Florida teams into the "metro" with probably Detroit and moving the the three NYC teams into the "Atlantic"
There is no realistic realignment with the Western Conference, that's pretty much set.
Keep the divisions the same just cut back on the cross conference games. I don't need to watch Boston play Anaheim, Minnesota, and Calgary twice a year. I'd much rather just play the other conference once a year and replace the 2nd game with division rival match ups. I'm sure many other fans of other teams might feel similar too
