Division Realignment Idea

[GMR]

Without contracting or relocating teams, realignment makes little sense. No matter what graphs you draw, someone will have to travel more than other teams. Also, do teams play more games against division opponents than other Conference teams?

For instance, I believe Detroit only plays Toronto three times this season.

 

[rojac]

I honestly couldn't care less about seeing every team once at home. I'd rather see division rivals 6 or 8 times a year than see Winnipeg or Calgary once.

Frankly, that was boring as hell when they did it for a couple of seasons after the 2004-05 lockout.

 

[jgatie]

Been there done that, STH weren’t fans of seeing the same teams over and over.

I was a season ticket holder for years, the tickets I gave away or sold were always the west coast teams, and it was not easy to find takers. I never missed a rivalry team.

 

[rojac]

Who knows? That wasn't the question asked by OP.

My point is that the OP is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

 

[Golden_Jet]

I was a season ticket holder for years, the tickets I gave away or sold were always the west coast teams, and it was not easy to find takers. I never missed a rivalry team.

So was I, and most when filled out the annual survey done, that was number one complaint, same team 6-8 times, some teams none, doubt they’ll go back to that model.

 

[Maurice of Orange]

Just make it simple put Tampa and Florida in the metropolitan division and put Pittsburgh and Columbus in the Atlantic division.

Keep the west as is.

 

[Tom Polakis]

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

Yeah, this comment could go into the recent thread about scheduling grievances. I know it has some novelty value to play every other team, but I'd just as soon see more games in the same division and conference.

But the divisions are fine, even though I wish we didn't get bumped into the Central, despite it making perfect sense.

 

[sinDer]

Why fix something that isn't broken?

 

[VivaLasVegas]

My point is that the OP is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.

Yep, I discerned that initially, not that anybody in the League listens to HFBoards anyway, it's all just hypothetical chatting like people discussing who should be playing on what line -- the coaches aren't paying attention.

 

[jkrdevil]

The only switch i would want to see is boston and carolina.

Would bring back the Bos/NYR rivalry.

Also would bring the three southeast teams together.

What Bruins-Rangers rivalry? They two teams have been in different division for nearly 50 years.

I get there is a natural NY/Bos rivalry, but it hasn’t really been in hockey since the 70’s because of the division split. Each team has bigger rivals.

 

[JKG33]

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

I couldn't disagree more. This isn't the NFL where you only play 17 games. Over an 82 game schedule there's more than enough games to play everyone twice.

Having divisional playoffs is already bad enough. Don't need to lean into divisions even more yet. The covid nonsense season was bad enough

 

[Ruggs225]

What Bruins-Rangers rivalry? They two teams have been in different division for nearly 50 years.

I get there is a natural NY/Bos rivalry, but it hasn’t really been in hockey since the 70’s because of the division split. Each team has bigger rivals.

More of a boston/ny thing. There is still a rivalry there.

But every major sport NY and BOS are in the same division except the NHL.

And there is definitely some bad blood between the franchises and fanbases even though we havent been in the same division.

NY/Bos always will have a rivalry.

 

[coolboarder]

For me, the idea of rivalry is dead due to low number of games despite the long history. If you want to increase rivalry games, drop the conference and go with division of 4 teams divisions with 8 games in one division and 2 games against non-divisional opponents and you'll see rivalry becoming lively again. Make rivalries great again.

 

[kvladimir]

Without contracting or relocating teams, realignment makes little sense. No matter what graphs you draw, someone will have to travel more than other teams. Also, do teams play more games against division opponents than other Conference teams?

For instance, I believe Detroit only plays Toronto three times this season.

That's because the current schedule matrix (since Seattle joined) doesn't allow for a 4/3/2 setup, that's 84 games. And the NHL made the (really dumb) decision to shave those two extra games off of division rivals' games against each other, so now every year, every team has just 3 games vs 2 of their division rivals. They could have had 2 conference opponents go down to 2 games on a rotating basis instead, but I guess that would have made too much sense?

 

[BruinsFan37]

That's because the current schedule matrix (since Seattle joined) doesn't allow for a 4/3/2 setup, that's 84 games. And the NHL made the (really dumb) decision to shave those two extra games off of division rivals' games against each other, so now every year, every team has just 3 games vs 2 of their division rivals. They could have had 2 conference opponents go down to 2 games on a rotating basis instead, but I guess that would have made too much sense?

Isn't that just a temporary measure until the 84-game season is formally approved? I know they've been in talks about extending the season to 84.

 

[kvladimir]

Isn't that just a temporary measure until the 84-game season is formally approved? I know they've been in talks about extending the season to 84.

I haven't heard that, but even if that's true, they still could have done it the other way around, kept the divisional games and brought the 2 extra conference games back later...

 

[coolboarder]

I haven't heard that, but even if that's true, they still could have done it the other way around, kept the divisional games and brought the 2 extra conference games back later...

Here is what I would like to see, change the schedule matrix if realignment doesn't ever happen is scrap one extra conference games and replace them with divisional games and you'd see 8 divisional games to 5 divisional games vs 6 teams and 4 divisional games vs 1 team based on a rotation basis, of course. That way your road trip schedule outside the division would be just 24 games. Rest of the trip would be inside the divisions and within their own time zone as much as possible. With this type of schedule, you wouldn't need to put the western teams out to the east that early and let them set their tone for the season rather than chasing the standing if they have an awful road trip to start the season.

 

[Power Surge]

So was I, and most when filled out the annual survey done, that was number one complaint, same team 6-8 times, some teams none, doubt they’ll go back to that model.

As a Tampa fan, wouldn’t mind being in the Metro but the league doesn't want to separate Pittsburgh's rivalries. So Maybe have Carolina and Columbus go to the Atlantic.

 

[HTFN]

It was mostly fun because we got to see Carolina and Nashville more regularly and those matchups got spicy really quickly, plus the Stanley Cup rematch with Dallas. Throwing more regular trips to Minnesota and Winnipeg in there kind of dampers my enthusiasm for this concept, though it's not that bad.

People say there wasn't much history or anything to miss with the Southeast division, but from a Tampa fan's perspective it's kind of a drag constantly playing teams with way more history than us that don't really see us as a true rival no matter how much we beat them since they have decades older rivalries.

You know what, I kind of agree with that.

Back when the Atlanta Thrashers existed, those Caps/Thrashers games got really intense like all the time, Ovechkin f***ing loved them and got all hot for them, and they were both scoring slugfests and sometimes regular slugfests with Boulton and Brashear lurking around...

Spicy games is almost an understatement, those Southeast boys went at each other like they were all the redheaded step-child of somebody else

 

[Kirikanoir]

I was looking at the NHL map and realized how weird the divisions are laid out. Maybe there is a reason for this, but I thought I'd take a stab at a different alignment. Without needless flaming, tell me what you think.

*Pacific:
Vancouver
Seattle
San Jose
Colorado
Arizona
Vegas
Los Angeles
Anaheim
*Northern:
Edmonton
Calgary
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Chicago
Detroit
Toronto
Buffalo
**Southeastern:
Florida
Tampa Bay
Dallas
Columbus
Carolina
St. Louis
Nashville
Washington
**North Atlantic:
Montreal
Ottawa
New York
Long Island
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Boston
Pittsburgh

*Conference 1
** Conference 2

So as a Vancouver Canucks fan what reason would I have to support this?

Your taking 2 teams out ( Edmonton, Calgary) that are some of Vancouver`s biggest rivals for over 40 years, as well as being two of their closest rivals outside of Seattle.

And in return you replace them with (Colorado & Arizona), which doubles or even triples Vancouver travel distance compared to the Alberta trip. And since both Colorado & Arizona are in the same time zone as Edmonton & Calgary there is no gain from everyone playing in the same time zone either. So I fail to see any gain for the Canucks in this move.

 

[Gjman2019]

I was looking at the NHL map and realized how weird the divisions are laid out. Maybe there is a reason for this, but I thought I'd take a stab at a different alignment. Without needless flaming, tell me what you think.

*Pacific:
Vancouver
Seattle
San Jose
Colorado
Arizona
Vegas
Los Angeles
Anaheim
*Northern:
Edmonton
Calgary
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Chicago
Detroit
Toronto
Buffalo
**Southeastern:
Florida
Tampa Bay
Dallas
Columbus
Carolina
St. Louis
Nashville
Washington
**North Atlantic:
Montreal
Ottawa
New York
Long Island
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Boston
Pittsburgh

*Conference 1
** Conference 2

Pretty good but a lot of east west travel for the Northern Division.

 

[TanguaySauce]

Eliminate divisions altogether.

2 conferences. Seed by overall points. 1v8 format.

 

[Wayward Son]

This is considerably worse than what exists now.

 

[Align]

What NHL realignment should be used with the Utah Hockey Club? How about this?
WESTERN CONFERENCE (12 teams):
Northwest Div.: Edm., Cgy., Van., Sea.
Pacific Div.: SJS, LAK, Ana., VGK
Frontier Div.: Wpg., Min., Col., Uta.

CENTRAL CONFERENCE (8 teams):
Northern Div.: StL., Chi., Det., CBJ
Southern Div.: Dal., Nas., TBL, Fla.,

EASTERN CONFERENCE (12 teams):
Northeast Div.: Tor., Ott, Mtl., Bos.
Metropolitan Div.: NYR, NYI, NJD, Buf.
Atlantic Div.: Pit., Phi., Wsh., Car.
Next post for season scheduling.

 

[TheNumber4]

Eastern Conference Teams crying about Travel. Welcome to the Reality the Oilers have ALWAYS faced.