ManofSteel55
Registered User
The Florida teams are in the division they are for the sake of selling tickets to snowbirds. It won't change.
Division Realignment
- Thread starter BrettRocker95
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Gospel of Prospal
America's Team
WingsMJN2965
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Florida teams with the northern teams makes perfect sense when you realize that both the Florida teams sucked during the realignment and it gave the league the opportunity to sell more tickets to snowbird fans for half their home games.
WingsMJN2965
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The Blunder Years
Registered User
The divisions are really nice. Just have 1st place in each one be 1, 2, and 3 seeds and the rest all battle out for 5 wildcards. Would allow for more fair playoff matchups.
WingsMJN2965
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Gonna go ahead and guess that Detroit, Pittsburgh, and Buffalo all throw a fit over that division.
Go back to the 1 vs 8, 2 vs 7.. format again. It’s way more exciting (8th seed knocks off the 1st seed!!), easier for casual fans to understand (NBA) and it rewards regular season success, we saw 2 very good teams in Toronto and Tampa going toe to toe in the 1st round, under the old format they would’ve likely clashed much later on. Should be an even playing field for every team, can’t reward teams in a weak division and punish teams in a strong division, absolutely makes no sense, seedings 1-8 should be based on points.
The problem is that the divisions and conferences have become institutions rather than just practical way to divide teams by their geographic locations. Of course it makes more sense to play more against teams which are closer to you in the regular season.
However, when the play-offs start all these divisions and conferences should be forgotten.
If New York Rangers and New York Islanders are the two best teams they should meet in the Stanley Cup finals.
Or ditto if Los Angeles Kings or Anaheim are the best two.
However, when the play-offs start all these divisions and conferences should be forgotten.
If New York Rangers and New York Islanders are the two best teams they should meet in the Stanley Cup finals.
Or ditto if Los Angeles Kings or Anaheim are the best two.
Ivan eht Demidov
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All the more reason for Arizona to relocate, lol.
If they move to Houston or Austin or Kansas City, then all our problems are solved! ........ until the next time any team moves to a different time zone, or expansion occurs!
The alignment just needs to be more flexible, I think...
By making other rivalries much better...
Ok........ so, the Habs are coming to, then? And if they do, then the Leafs also? And if the Leafs also, then the Sens and Sabres surely as well, yes? And the Red Wings? Oh and if the Rangers are there, then the Devils, Islanders, Flyers, Penguins and Caps have to come too, right? Oh hey, we just built a conference, not a division!
My point here is that divisions and conferences with strict boundaries limit who can be division rivals and who can't, even if there is a rivalry to exploit. We can either accept that, or we can switch to a format that doesn't have conferences or divisions. Yes, this is an option: David Barter | A/B Rival Format (and even this still has limitations just because you can't have teams play a different number of games than others, and not every team is equally desirable as a rival)
This schedule format is a good idea if the current alignment is kept, getting rid of the 1 extra game for within-conference opponents, which isn't a huge difference. One idea I proposed recently is also getting rid of the 5th game vs division opponents, because if you limit to 4 x division opponents, and 2 vs all others, you can have a 76-game regular season, after which the top 3 teams could clinch a playoff spot and play 6 more games (2 against each other) that would count as additional regular season games to jockey for seeding. Meanwhile, the 4th and 5th place teams have a best of 5 play-in series for the 4th seed in the division, and the wild card is eliminated. Technically, this allows for 20 teams to "make the playoffs" (really only 16 still), and the season does not need to be lengthened. All of those games at the end of the year would almost always be meaningful, also.
Could either have 2 4-team divisions become a bracket, like the 8-team ones do now. Have the winners of each division be the #1 and #2 seeds in these 8-team "conferences", and then the next 2 teams by record. If they did this, it would be set up to nicely handle differences in divisional strength, since when that happens, it will always pair the weaker division winner against the second place team from the stronger one (as the #2/#3 seeds in the 8-team conference bracket).
You can also do a similar thing with a 16-team conference format: have the top 2 teams (not just the 8-team division winners), or the top 4 teams (if you have 4 divisions and a 16-team conference bracket) clinch higher seeds than every other team. So, these would be seed 1-4, and then every other team by record would be seeds 5-8. This handles differences in divisional strength in a similar way, since you would always have the weak #2 teams (or 4th-place division winner) as the #4 seed face strong #3 teams (or #2 if there are 4 divisions) from the other division as the #5 seed. Rewards teams for finishing higher in their own division with home ice, but avoids giving them a muffin matchup against the next highest team in their own division, and giving the division winner a stronger team from outside their division (possibly, via wild card).
See above, this would not happen, as long as you don't force the "top 2 make it, bottom 2 don't" paradigm. If it's division winners auto-clinch, then the next 2 teams (in an 8-team bracket) or 4 teams (in a 16-team bracket) don't have to be set positions, so they could all be from one division if that's what records the teams have.
Adele Dazeem
Registered User
This looks like how the NFL does it, and honestly it's a pretty simple way of creating more meaningful rivalries and lessening the impact of travel.
You could also decrease the number of games with this approach which would increase demand and fill out more arenas. Not to mention making every game more important for Playoff aspirations.
Also to address this:
You wouldn't have this discrepancy considering the fact that inner division games will be the bulk of the season and the placement within those divisions will be mostly based off those results.
But, just to be extra precautious you could have a bye for the two top teams from each conference and have the best 3rd place team from each conference play the 2nd seed (just like how the NFL does it).
You could also decrease the number of games with this approach which would increase demand and fill out more arenas. Not to mention making every game more important for Playoff aspirations.
Also to address this:
You wouldn't have this discrepancy considering the fact that inner division games will be the bulk of the season and the placement within those divisions will be mostly based off those results.
But, just to be extra precautious you could have a bye for the two top teams from each conference and have the best 3rd place team from each conference play the 2nd seed (just like how the NFL does it).
Djp
Registered User
there are many ways to skin this….
sea, van, SJ, LA
Ana, LV, PHx, colo
Edm, WPG, cal, min
chi stl det cbs
dal Nash fl tb
car was Phil pit
buf tor Mon ott
bos 3 ny teams
As for playoffs you could have designed 62 game schedule
for division you have 18 games
8 division winners advance on bye. The best 16 left based on those 62 games gets get WCs where they play best of 5
division winner vs survivors is best 5
rest are best of 7
Refalanhe
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PunchImlach is Alive
Registered User
Toronto and Buffalo are inseparable as rivals. It is the center of the cold war between the United States and Canada. You cannot put them in different divisions.
violaswallet
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- Apr 8, 2019
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Depends how playoffs works. I don’t like that so small divisions could yield to massive difference quality: all four SE division teams made had a 100 points and made then 2nd round unless they played another team in the division.
Dr Beinfest
Registered User
Not much to say about the divisions themselves, but the names would have to get mixed up. South central, Atlantic, and metropolitan all have names distinct from hockey. Copying and pasting OP with minor readjustment let’s have a second crack at this:
Weastern* Conference
Northweast
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Pacific
- Anaheim Ducks
- Los Angeles King
- San Jose Sharks
- Seattle Kraken
Southweast
- Arizona Coyotes
- Colorado Avalanche
- Dallas Stars
- Vegas Golden Knights
Central
- Chicago Blackhawks
- Minnesota Wild
- St. Louis Blues
- Nashville Predators
Eastern Conference
Southeast
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Florida Panthers
- Washington Capitals
- Tampa Bay Lightning
Midweast
- Buffalo Sabres
- Columbus Blue Jackets
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Detroit Red Wings
Mid Atlantic
- New Jersey Devils
- New York Islanders
- New York Rangers
- Philadelphia Flyers
Northeast
- Boston Bruins
- Montreal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
By misspelling west as weast, most certainly some of my more challenging inclusions such as Buffalo in the midweast may be forgiven.
Weastern* Conference
Northweast
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Vancouver Canucks
- Winnipeg Jets
Pacific
- Anaheim Ducks
- Los Angeles King
- San Jose Sharks
- Seattle Kraken
Southweast
- Arizona Coyotes
- Colorado Avalanche
- Dallas Stars
- Vegas Golden Knights
Central
- Chicago Blackhawks
- Minnesota Wild
- St. Louis Blues
- Nashville Predators
Eastern Conference
Southeast
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Florida Panthers
- Washington Capitals
- Tampa Bay Lightning
Midweast
- Buffalo Sabres
- Columbus Blue Jackets
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Detroit Red Wings
Mid Atlantic
- New Jersey Devils
- New York Islanders
- New York Rangers
- Philadelphia Flyers
Northeast
- Boston Bruins
- Montreal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Toronto Maple Leafs
By misspelling west as weast, most certainly some of my more challenging inclusions such as Buffalo in the midweast may be forgiven.
Nikishin al Gaib
THIS is hockey?
- Jun 8, 2017
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Alright, lets see
if we stick with 4 team 'pods'
Pod A
- Buffalo Sabres
- New Jersey Devils
- New York Rangers
- New York Islanders
Pod B
- Boston Bruins
- Montreal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Winnipeg Jets
Pod C
- Chicago Blackhawks
- Detroit Red Wings
- Minnesota Wild
- Toronto Maple Leafs
Pod D
- Columbus Blue Jackets
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Washington Capitals
Pod E
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Florida Panthers
- Nashville Predators
- Tampa Bay Lightning
Pod F
- Arizona Coyotes
- Colorado Avalanche
- Dallas Stars
- St Louis Blues
Pod G
- Anaheim Ducks
- Las Vegas Knights
- Los Angeles Kings
- San Jose Sharks
Pod H
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Seattle Kraken
- Vancouver Canucks
if we stick with 4 team 'pods'
Pod A
- Buffalo Sabres
- New Jersey Devils
- New York Rangers
- New York Islanders
Pod B
- Boston Bruins
- Montreal Canadiens
- Ottawa Senators
- Winnipeg Jets
Pod C
- Chicago Blackhawks
- Detroit Red Wings
- Minnesota Wild
- Toronto Maple Leafs
Pod D
- Columbus Blue Jackets
- Pittsburgh Penguins
- Philadelphia Flyers
- Washington Capitals
Pod E
- Carolina Hurricanes
- Florida Panthers
- Nashville Predators
- Tampa Bay Lightning
Pod F
- Arizona Coyotes
- Colorado Avalanche
- Dallas Stars
- St Louis Blues
Pod G
- Anaheim Ducks
- Las Vegas Knights
- Los Angeles Kings
- San Jose Sharks
Pod H
- Calgary Flames
- Edmonton Oilers
- Seattle Kraken
- Vancouver Canucks
Price is Wright
Registered User
Go even further. Get rid of conferences. Top 16 make the playoffs. 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15, etc.
Ok. What is your regular season matrix of games? What is your playoff seeding?
Listing divisions doesn’t really do anything unless you have a plan on how the games are setup.
What is the point of heavy regional division games if you are Seattle and have to play Nashville or Chicago in round 1?
coolboarder
Registered User
I love your realignment on 4 team divisions but I would scrap the conference format altogether with a schedule matrix of 8/2 consists of 8 divisional games and 2 games against rest of the league for total of 80 games.
First round of playoffs would have been 1 v 2 divisional series and the series winner would move on with all 8 divisional winners with reseeding to non-divisional records in regular season from 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, 4 v 5.
You would want to use non-divisional records to determine the 2nd round match-up because in case of teams playing in a strongest teams in a division a chance to get some home-ice advantage rather than all of them pulling each other down due to tough divisional games so thus every games matter in regular season when it comes to non-divisional match-up throughout the year so that the teams playing in a weakest division probably having a poor record outside division either middle of the pack or probably a seeded 8th in order to keep things fair for 2nd round and onward.
Therefore you'd have higher chance of having two best possible teams in the cup final regardless of geographic locations.
This will give every team a simple focus, win the division, rather than win the conference. Ideally, you want to have some hatred rivalry back in the league with potential 15 games against a team if both teams is a top 2 in the division.
First round of playoffs would have been 1 v 2 divisional series and the series winner would move on with all 8 divisional winners with reseeding to non-divisional records in regular season from 1 v 8, 2 v 7, 3 v 6, 4 v 5.
You would want to use non-divisional records to determine the 2nd round match-up because in case of teams playing in a strongest teams in a division a chance to get some home-ice advantage rather than all of them pulling each other down due to tough divisional games so thus every games matter in regular season when it comes to non-divisional match-up throughout the year so that the teams playing in a weakest division probably having a poor record outside division either middle of the pack or probably a seeded 8th in order to keep things fair for 2nd round and onward.
Therefore you'd have higher chance of having two best possible teams in the cup final regardless of geographic locations.
This will give every team a simple focus, win the division, rather than win the conference. Ideally, you want to have some hatred rivalry back in the league with potential 15 games against a team if both teams is a top 2 in the division.
Nikishin al Gaib
THIS is hockey?
- Jun 8, 2017
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Fair question.
So those are geographical pods that, for the most part, try to promote as many regional rivalries as possible.
Regarding playoffs, you bring in the top 2 finishers of each Pod. They play each other in the first round. From there, you re-seed the entire playoffs based on league standings. The bracket with the 1st seed plays for one trophy, the bracket with the 2nd seed plays for the other.
Regarding scheduling, play each team in your Pod 3 home and 3 away (18 games). The remainder of the schedule is filled with home and aways against everyone else (56 games), with an additional home or away against 2 other pods (8 games), which rotate annually. That gets you to 82 games.
coolboarder
Registered User
I am not favor of it because of toughest travel that western teams has to go through. I ami in favor of 4 teams division with schedule matrix of 8-2, 8 divisional games then you would only have to travel other city once and never coming back until next year unless you meet them in the playoffs. I miss the old rivalry where they would meet for 6 times a year but I would not mind 8 games against their closest rivals and I'm sure that others wouldn't mind. I hate the current setup where they would only meet 3 or 4 times a year. When rotation comes and imagine Canucks meeting Oilers and Flames for only 3 games once every 4-5 years with the current schedule matrix rotation. That is not a good look, the same for Canadiens vs Leaf's on the rotation, Rangers-Islanders once the time comes.
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