New NHL Regular Season and Playoffs formation

[GRECOHAB]

First of all this is my personally opinion on how to get the game even more intersting and fascinating for fans all over the world. This proposal are going to get teams involved for more than just the regular season and will generate the sense of rivalries all over the league.

Bring in another final expansion team and cement the number of teams playing in the league at the number of 32. From there on, if a city wants to host an NHL team they should come up with a better project and claim a team through relocation. The number 32 is great as it can be devided to 16,8,4,2 making things easier in formating divisions and conferences.

My proposal begins with welcoming a new team, lets say that is Seattle (SEA), in the league and lets speculate they are the Seals. We create 8 region divisions due to geografical criteria. Each division will include 4 teams, so that is 4x8=32 teams. We can name each divison after hockey legents but for now lets just stick with the geografical criteria, so...

East Atlantic North (EAN)
Montreal Canadiens MTL
Ottawa Senators OTT
Buffalo Sabres BUF
Toronto Maple Leafs TOR

East Atlantic Metro (EAM)
Boston Bruins BOS
New York Rangers NYR
New York Islanders NYI
New Jersey Devils NJD

East Central Metro (ECM)
Pittsburgh Penguins PIT
Philadelphia Flyers PHI
Detroit Red Wings DET
Coloumbus Blue Jackets CBJ

East Atlantic South (EAS)
Washington Capitals WSH
Carolina Hurricanes CAR
Tampa Bay Lightning TBL
Florida Panthers FLA

West Pacific North (WPN)
Edmonton Oilers EDM
Calgary Flames CGY
Vancouver Canucks VAN
Seattle Black Seals SEA

West Pacific South (WPS)
San Jose Sharks SJS
Los Angeles Kings LAK
Anahaeim Ducks ANA
Vegas Golden Knights VGK

West Central North (WCN)
Winnipeg Jets WPG
Minnesota Wild MIN
Saint Louis Blues STL
Chicago Black Hawks CHI

West Central South (WCS)
Arizona Coyotes ARI
Dallas Stars DAL
Colorado Avalanche COL
Nashville Predators NSH

Every team in the league, plays every other team twice, one game home and one away. Thats a total of 62 games (31 home games and 31 away games). Every team in the league, plays every team inside their division, two additionals home and away games through the regular season scedule. Thats an additional 12 games (6 home games and 6 away games). So that means of a total of 74 games played by each team in the regular season. In the regular season each win gives two points (regular time, overtime or shootout) and every lose gives zero points. I would opt to eliminate the current loser point formation. Win 2 points, Lose 0 points. To make things even more interested every team carries their regular season results in the pre playoffs and final 8, against any opponent they face and match up. This format insures that all regular season games are of great importance.

After the regular season ends, teams are classified in their division and they all advance to the pre playoffs. The pre playoffs are within the division a best of 7 series between seeds (1 vs 4 and 2 vs 3). The winners of the series play against each other, and and the lossers do too, again best of 7 series, and we then have the final classification of the division. For example in the EAN division, after the regular season ends, lets say the classification is 1. MTL, 2.OTT, 3.TOR, 4.BUF. The series would be MTL-BUF and OTT-TOR. They carry the regular season results (6 games played between them, any combination of 6-0, 5-1, 4-2, 3-3, 2-4, 1-5, 0-6) and they play 2 home, 2 away games beginning from the highest seeded team, until one team reaches 7 wins. There will be potentionally 1 game series (if there is a 6-0 lead from the regular season and ends as a 7-0 sweep) or 7 game series (if there is a 3-3 tie from the regular season and end as a 7-6 heartbreaker). Same goes on in the winners series and the losers series. This face gives us a Division Winner.

After the division crowns are awarded for each one of them we enter the final 8. That is 8 teams the best of each division. The 4 of them are from the East and the other 4 from the West. There will be an NHL draw then to random choose the next matchups within each Conference. The 4 Eastern teams will format two series and the Western teams another two. In this face, they all will be best of 5 series, as teams carry the regular season results against opponents (2 games played between them, any combination of 2-0, 1-1, 0-2) and they play 2 home, 2 away games beginning from the team with the most regular season points, until one team reaches 5 wins. There will be potentionally 3 game series (if there is a 2-0 lead from the regular season and ends as a 5-0 sweep) or 7 game series (if there is a 1-1 tie from the regular season and end as a 5-4 heartbreaker). Same goes on in the winners and losers series. This face gives us a Conference Winner.

The Stanley Cap final matchup would be of course between the Conference winners in a best of 5 matchup including regular season results, as discribed above. This face gives us the Stanley Cup Winner.

So...No loser points, a more fair league stracture, extra motivation to all teams for winning every single game, add a random lottery for every draft pick to avoid tanking (maybe better the odds for the lower seeded teams in each division, but only that) and you have a very interesting product and a much competative league...

...Thoughts?

Click to read more...

 

[bobholly39]

So many issues....
Here's 1. Montreal has the best season in hockey history. They win 76 games and lose 6

Buffalo has the worst season in hockey history. They win 6 and lose 76

Problem is all 6 games between buffalo and Montreal are the ones buffalo wins and Montreal loses.

If I read your post right - buffalo has a chance to then knock Montreal out of the playoffs and advance to round 2 by simple winning 1 of 7 playoff games?

 

[Mickey Marner]

I like the divisional alignment if the NHL decides to go with 8 divisions. I don't like anything else.

 

[DEVILS130]

I'd love four team divisions, but I have messed around with it several times (assuming Seattle) and I never arrive at a good solution.

 

[tony d]

I do think we'll see 8 4 team divisions when Seattle gets their team. Not sure if they go back to 1 vs. 8 in the playoffs then or go with top 2 teams in each division. Either way realignment is coming once Seattle gets the team and the Arizona situation gets fixed.

 

[pheasant]

The NHL is such a competitive league. Look at the NBA, and you'll find like 4 teams that have a chance, and the rest spend the entire year knowing they are dead in the water.

Plus tanking like almost never realistically happens. There's been like 2 examples of it in 20 years, and the NHL already has new rules in place to prevent it (top 3 lottery).

And there's no way in the world the NHL should change the playoff format that drastically. Every series will remain a 7 game series, and the regular season results will never factor in once the playoffs start. The only minuscule chance to have the playoffs change is a buy in game, or 1vs8 structure and re-seeding. But this is borderline crazy.

 

[BrettHullsToe]

Your WCS division has serious problems. Nashville and Glendale are about 1,600 miles and a timezone apart (and realistically could be 2 timezones apart since Nashville is on the eastern edge of CST and Glendale is on the western edge of MST). That is an insane intra-divisional travel schedule compared to the rest of the league.

 

[DEVILS130]

Messing around and because I'm bored...

Atlantic Conference

Atlantic North Division

TOR
BUF
OTT
MTL

Atlantic South Division

NJD
NYR
NYI
BOS

Mid-Atlantic Conference - couldn't really think of a good name here...Metro doesn't work anymore

Mid-Atlantic North Division

PIT
PHI
CBJ
DET

Mid-Atlantic South Division

FLA
TBL
WSH
CAR

Central Conference

Central North Division

NSH
CHI
MIN
WPG

Central South Division

STL
DAL
COL
ARI

Pacific Conference

Pacific North Division

SEA
CGY
EDM
VAN

Pacific South Division

LAK
ANA
SJS
VGK
--------------------------------------------------

Playoffs:
-Top two in each division meet for division title
-Division champs meet for conference title
-Conference champs are re-seeded for a final (frozen?) four

I'm not even a big advocate for this, just think it might be a fun format.