Mr Positive
Cap Crunch Incoming
- Nov 20, 2013
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The logic of the current alignment is all about time zones and travel time. Having a Northern division is a no go.
Division Realignment Idea
- Thread starter Kraken Jokes
- Start date
BB79
🇺🇲
- Apr 30, 2011
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I'd be fine with eliminating divisions if it also meant eliminating interconference play. If not, go back to 3 divisions in each conference. Still weird to me that FLA and TB are in the same division as Montreal and Ottawa instead of the mid-Atlantic teams
I miss the old Northeast divison. Three original 6 teams in one division. We were spoiled
Not our fault you live on the north pole
It’s either keep it the way it is or just do away with divisions.
People keep wanting to tinker with something that isn’t broken and doesn’t have a viable alternative that makes any more sense. Swapping SLC for Phoenix is about as clean as it gets, why would that change make any difference at all? If anything the Central is now slightly even more sensible because it is all Central and Mountain time zone teams (with daylight savings) - as opposed to Phoenix being an hour “off” (Pacific equivalent with daylight savings) in March and April of the hockey season.
People keep wanting to tinker with something that isn’t broken and doesn’t have a viable alternative that makes any more sense. Swapping SLC for Phoenix is about as clean as it gets, why would that change make any difference at all? If anything the Central is now slightly even more sensible because it is all Central and Mountain time zone teams (with daylight savings) - as opposed to Phoenix being an hour “off” (Pacific equivalent with daylight savings) in March and April of the hockey season.
coolboarder
Registered User
I thought it was a new thread idea but I didn't realize that this thread is a year old and I posted in this topic. The fact of matter is I still don't like the Metropolitan Division is having their life a lot easier. I would suggest do away with division and go with different schedule matrix: 8-2. 2 games outside the division would be a lot better and eliminate the conference and go with 4 teams division set-up and the total of games being played at 80 games. I always have felt that the playoff format should always have been divisional with short distance travel for all teams for first round.
Second round is where all the fun begins with best non-divisional match-up record being seeded from 1-8 and ALL divisional records from regular season is thrown out since divisional playoffs has been completed after first round so therefore all non-divisional games will matter a lot when determining the round 2 seeding with all remaining rounds being 2-3-2.
That is to me a balanced schedule and its a lot easier for NHL to schedule that way on month by month themes: first month being a divisional match-up then after 6 games, they schedule next 8 games on a match-up between division at the same time, home and away with maximum number of consecutive games being on the road is 5 games for all teams during non-divisional schedule block.. Then around Christmas break or around All-star break and end of season being divisional focused. So balanced that one certain teams do not get disadvantaged of being overload with long road trip.
To give you some idea of what schedule block looks like:
6 games Season opening divisional match-up (3 home and 3 away)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 2 ( 4 home and 4 away)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Davison 3 ( 4 away and 4 home)
6 games divisional games (possible around Thanksgiving weekend)?
8 games: Division 1 Vs Davison 4 ( 4 away and 4 home)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 5 (4 home and 4 away)
6 games: divisional games Around Christmas break?
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 6 (4 home and 4 away)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 7 ( 4 away and 4 home)
All-Star break
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 8 (4 away and 4 home) (This match-up from the same time zone) Northwest Pacific could have been Division 1 and Division 8 could have been Southwest Pacific teams for example.
Trade Deadline.
6 games: End of season Divisional match-up
Of notes:
Let's say if Division 1 are Pacific northwest and all teams could have been on the road for 8 games with 4 away games and starting a new block at the same time for example: Division 2 and Division 3 could have been Northeast Atlantic and Metropolitan New York division for example without a certain team gaining advantage in term of standing at any point of the year and they still could travel extremely light all at once.
This is what I have in mind for 4 teams divisional realignment with no conference format. No back to back games. I would exempt the back to back only if there are a home and home series for a divisional play without a team gaining a tired team in their schedule. Plenty of opportunities to schedule a home and home series with this realignment something we rarely see home and home series anymore in the league.
Total games played 80 games. If the owner is concerned about loss of an extra home gate revenue with just one measly home game, they could easily schedule one extra game of any team of their choice or having first round of playoffs being best of 9 games easily.
Second round is where all the fun begins with best non-divisional match-up record being seeded from 1-8 and ALL divisional records from regular season is thrown out since divisional playoffs has been completed after first round so therefore all non-divisional games will matter a lot when determining the round 2 seeding with all remaining rounds being 2-3-2.
That is to me a balanced schedule and its a lot easier for NHL to schedule that way on month by month themes: first month being a divisional match-up then after 6 games, they schedule next 8 games on a match-up between division at the same time, home and away with maximum number of consecutive games being on the road is 5 games for all teams during non-divisional schedule block.. Then around Christmas break or around All-star break and end of season being divisional focused. So balanced that one certain teams do not get disadvantaged of being overload with long road trip.
To give you some idea of what schedule block looks like:
6 games Season opening divisional match-up (3 home and 3 away)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 2 ( 4 home and 4 away)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Davison 3 ( 4 away and 4 home)
6 games divisional games (possible around Thanksgiving weekend)?
8 games: Division 1 Vs Davison 4 ( 4 away and 4 home)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 5 (4 home and 4 away)
6 games: divisional games Around Christmas break?
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 6 (4 home and 4 away)
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 7 ( 4 away and 4 home)
All-Star break
8 games: Division 1 Vs Division 8 (4 away and 4 home) (This match-up from the same time zone) Northwest Pacific could have been Division 1 and Division 8 could have been Southwest Pacific teams for example.
Trade Deadline.
6 games: End of season Divisional match-up
Of notes:
Let's say if Division 1 are Pacific northwest and all teams could have been on the road for 8 games with 4 away games and starting a new block at the same time for example: Division 2 and Division 3 could have been Northeast Atlantic and Metropolitan New York division for example without a certain team gaining advantage in term of standing at any point of the year and they still could travel extremely light all at once.
This is what I have in mind for 4 teams divisional realignment with no conference format. No back to back games. I would exempt the back to back only if there are a home and home series for a divisional play without a team gaining a tired team in their schedule. Plenty of opportunities to schedule a home and home series with this realignment something we rarely see home and home series anymore in the league.
Total games played 80 games. If the owner is concerned about loss of an extra home gate revenue with just one measly home game, they could easily schedule one extra game of any team of their choice or having first round of playoffs being best of 9 games easily.
John Mandalorian
2022 Avs: The First Dance
- Nov 29, 2018
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BLNY
Registered User
coolboarder
Registered User
Somehow I wonder if travelling to western conference match-up for any away games is a lot easier for Detroit to win more games since Western teams would travel to the Eastern conference teams then having Detroit in midst of their trip for a conference match-up a lot easier than vice versa. I noticed that Eastern teams travelling to the West is a lot easier and a lot more energy than having Western teams to travel to the Eastern teams? I wonder if it's the biggest factor? I recall the experience of living over the Eastern time zone and going home to see a family in the West and having a lot of energy even if it's 3 time zone away from my experience. After a short stay visiting, went back to the East and it hit me harder coming back.
Eastern Time zone teams being in the same conference as Pacific zone teams is a terrible idea
Bouboumaster
Registered User
- Jul 4, 2014
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Buffalo, Detroit and Toronto would be so happy to Play 6 Games in Edmonton and Calgary, and vice versa
The distance west-east is also larger than north-south. Bad idea.
Honour Over Glory
#firesully
- Jan 30, 2012
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kvladimir
Registered User
- Dec 1, 2010
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Ahhh, my favourite topic! It's not as dire a need to re-align now that the Coyotes are in SLC and no division spans 3 time zones (in daylight savings time), but geographically, rivalry-wise and in terms of # of games played, a lot remains to be desired, in my opinion...
I'm not sure how the playoff format would work (yet), but lately I've been playing with the idea of eliminating conferences completely, going to 8 divisions of 4 teams that play 6 games against each other per year, and slightly compromising on playing every team home-and-home every year (say, 1-3 divisions of 4 that a division will play only once per year, but it swaps every year, something like that).
The 8-division schedule would look like this, with divisions being splayed out in sequence and a higher number of games corresponding to which divisions are adjacent to each other (so the ones at each end would be more isolated, playing more games against each other and one other division instead of two):
I made two different versions of that alignment:
But, thinking about it, since there would be no conferences, and no obligation to play 3 games per year against all the west coast and Mountain teams if you're in the "West", I thought of an alternative that shakes things up a bit more:
So, this way, you get DET with CHI, but they still play TOR 3 times per year instead of 2, and WPG gets 3 games per year vs TOR, MTL and OTT. BOS gets 6 games per year vs the NY teams, but still gets 3 per year vs MTL, BUF and TOR. NSH loses a lot of games vs their usual division rivals, but still gets a home and home vs CHI, MIN, STL and DAL, plus 5 per year vs. CBJ, WSH, PHI and PIT, which would be an interesting change.
I don't know, both versions of this seems like they would be good for different reasons, but mainly, it gives a boost to a lot of great rivalries, while paring back some east/west play, but mostly in cases where there isn't much between the teams that only get 1 game per year (west/east Canadian teams still get the home and home, etc...)
Sorry for the long post
I'm not sure how the playoff format would work (yet), but lately I've been playing with the idea of eliminating conferences completely, going to 8 divisions of 4 teams that play 6 games against each other per year, and slightly compromising on playing every team home-and-home every year (say, 1-3 divisions of 4 that a division will play only once per year, but it swaps every year, something like that).
The 8-division schedule would look like this, with divisions being splayed out in sequence and a higher number of games corresponding to which divisions are adjacent to each other (so the ones at each end would be more isolated, playing more games against each other and one other division instead of two):
| games/year/team | PAC | NW | MW | CEN | NE | ATL | SHL/MTR | MTR/SE |
| PAC | 6 | 5 | 3 | 2 | 1/2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| NW | 5 | 6 | 2/3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| MW | 3 | 2/3 | 6 | 4 | 2 | 2 | 1 | 2 |
| CEN | 2 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1/2 |
| NE | 1/2 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 6 | 3 | 2 | 1/2 |
| ATL | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 6 | 4 | 3 |
| SHL/MTR | 1 | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 4 | 6 | 5 |
| MTR/SE | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1/2 | 1/2 | 3 | 5 | 6 |
I made two different versions of that alignment:
| PAC | NW | MW | CEN | NE | ATL | SHL | MTR |
| ANA LAK SJS VGK | VAN SEA CGY EDM | UTH COL MIN WPG | CHI STL DAL NSH | TOR DET OTT CBJ | MTL BOS BUF CAR | PIT WSH PHI NJD | NYI NYR TBL FLA |
But, thinking about it, since there would be no conferences, and no obligation to play 3 games per year against all the west coast and Mountain teams if you're in the "West", I thought of an alternative that shakes things up a bit more:
| PAC | NW | MW | CEN | NE | ATL | MTR | SE |
| ANA LAK SJS VGK | VAN SEA CGY EDM | UTH COL STL DAL | CHI DET MIN WPG | TOR BUF OTT MTL | BOS NJD NYI NYR | PIT WSH CBJ PHI | NSH CAR TBL FLA |
So, this way, you get DET with CHI, but they still play TOR 3 times per year instead of 2, and WPG gets 3 games per year vs TOR, MTL and OTT. BOS gets 6 games per year vs the NY teams, but still gets 3 per year vs MTL, BUF and TOR. NSH loses a lot of games vs their usual division rivals, but still gets a home and home vs CHI, MIN, STL and DAL, plus 5 per year vs. CBJ, WSH, PHI and PIT, which would be an interesting change.
I don't know, both versions of this seems like they would be good for different reasons, but mainly, it gives a boost to a lot of great rivalries, while paring back some east/west play, but mostly in cases where there isn't much between the teams that only get 1 game per year (west/east Canadian teams still get the home and home, etc...)
Sorry for the long post
Anglesmith
Setting up the play?
- Oct 12, 2012
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If you kept the current schedule set up, would it really matter much? You never play your division opponents on the road more than 2 times anymore.
kvladimir
Registered User
- Dec 1, 2010
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Oh, I missed this 3 conference idea. 3 conference is very interesting to me, since it seems like the geography of the league really lends itself to a West/Central-East/East type alignment.
Plus, schedule wise, if you want to stick with an 82 game schedule, check this out:
If you have a split of 10/11/11 between the three conferences, you get:
11-team conferences: 4 x 10 conference rivals (40 games) + 2 x 21 non-conference rivals (42 games) = 82 games
Then, for the 10-team conference: 2 x 22 non-conference rivals (44 games), 4 x 9 conference rivals (36 games) = 80 games, so just add a 5th games vs 2 conference rivals (one at home, one away) and you get 82 games!
As for the actual alignment itself, I like this one:
Western: ANA, CGY, COL, EDM, LAK, SJS, SEA, UTH, VAN, VGK
Central: CAR, CHI, CBJ, DAL, DET, FLA, MIN, NSH, STL, TBL, WPG (basically, the Central from COVID year, + WPG, MIN, STL)
Eastern: BOS, BUF, MTL, NJD, NYI, NYR, OTT, PHI, PIT, TOR, WSH
Because Toronto and LA are going to be so happy playing eachother in one of the first 3 rounds of the playoffs.
kvladimir
Registered User
- Dec 1, 2010
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Definitely not in round 1 or 2, but I think inter-conference series in round 3, depending on the order of league-wide standings, would be a great idea, and allow some very interesting possible SCFs. As long as the chances are equal league-wide of getting an inter-conference series in round 3, not just aligning teams like TOR and DET specifically with the Western teams...
The OP had Pacific and North in the same Conference. Having those two divisions in the conference has a high chance of having a Toronto v LA match up in round 1 or 2 if either team is a WC team. My comment is based off that.
kvladimir
Registered User
- Dec 1, 2010
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Right, so specifically aligning those specific teams (Pacific + North) to meet in Round 3. Yeah, that would be a no-no, but a system where you can get matchups like TOR/LA, CAR/COL, VAN/PHI, etc in Round 3, as well as TOR/NYR, VAN/COL and such in the SCF, that would have a good degree of appeal, imho.
