Realignment Approved by BoG

[Cowbell232]

The playoff thing is a problem because it rewards a weak division with an absurdly strong team.

I.e., the Blackhawks this year will have a significantly easier first round than anyone else. That's bull ****.

 

[Desert Devil]

The main thing that makes me happy about this is that I'll be able to see the Devils at least once a year. That being said, I think it will grow annoying have to face the same teams over and over again in the playoffs after playing them so many times already during the season. Whatever. Adapt or die.

 

[IcedMaidenDeth]

Hockey Central ‏@SNHockeyCentral
Bettman: Looking at "fan-friendly" names that are geographically based.

If we play in the Messier division I'm rioting.

If they were going to go with fairly recent stars, I can't imagine Messier getting the nod over Lemieux. But I guess this IS the NHL we're talking about...

 

[Devils86]

The playoff thing is a problem because it rewards a weak division with an absurdly strong team.

I.e., the Blackhawks this year will have a significantly easier first round than anyone else. That's bull ****.

Why is that BS....shouldn't the best team have the weakest playoff opponent...and you're incorrect in as much as if the strong team comes from a weak division more than likely they will play the 5th place team in the stronger division as only 3 teams from that division would make the playoffs. Its still a 1v8 series..no matter what.( i guess there is a mathematical improbability that the 5th place team could have a more points than the 3rd place team but is that much different than the 3v6 series now...routinely the 4 5 seeds have more points than the 3rd.

 

[IcedMaidenDeth]

The playoff thing is a problem because it rewards a weak division with an absurdly strong team.

I.e., the Blackhawks this year will have a significantly easier first round than anyone else. That's bull ****.

There's a strong possibility of this happening in any playoff format where half the teams make the playoffs, regardless. Besides, it's pretty rare where one division remains the best/worst for more than a year or two, so the "balance of power" will shift eventually anyway.

 

[Cowbell232]

Yes, it is supposed to happen, but if it's divisional it's not fair. 1 v 8, etc. is fair because it doesn't matter who you play, it's your opposite.

The inter-division game might be 1 v. some one really, really bad if you're division has less parity then the rest of the league.

 

[RandoDoomer]

The main thing that makes me happy about this is that I'll be able to see the Devils at least once a year. That being said, I think it will grow annoying have to face the same teams over and over again in the playoffs after playing them so many times already during the season. Whatever. Adapt or die.

I'm old enough to remember divisional playoffs, and yeah, at first it's cool. Then it gets dreary. Those Flyer and Ranger playoff series' we all remember are memorable and special *because* they don't happen every year.

I don't know, maybe I'm just getting crabby in my old age...

On the bright side, the chances of losing to the Flyers or Rangers in the conference finals again (a fate worse than death) is miniscule now. So, yay, I guess.

 

[CerebralGenesis]

yay i'm so happy

 

[OpethNJD]

Messier division would be absolute crap...Lemieux division would be fine though...or just keep it Atlantic and be done with it without having any bias towards one team in the division

 

[IcedMaidenDeth]

Yes, it is supposed to happen, but if it's divisional it's not fair. 1 v 8, etc. is fair because it doesn't matter who you play, it's your opposite.

The inter-division game might be 1 v. some one really, really bad if you're division has less parity then the rest of the league.

1 v 8 (and so on) isn't really all that fair anyway, if the 8th team is stronger than the 3rd, with the divisional winners being guaranteed a top spot. Many people actually envied the Devils getting 6th last year, as we got to play Florida first. You can't really avoid matchups like this unless you want to get rid of all wildcards completely, ramp up the focus on divisional games (like 6 games vs. each division team and only 2 games for non-division teams, regardless of conference), and then reseed the division winners after the first two rounds of divisional playoffs or something. Or just take the winners from each division and only have two rounds of playoffs. That would be the most fair, but least fun.

 

[engy]

Now we can cheer for Parise next season.

 

[Brick City]

And complaining about the use of "wildcards?" Come on, you could basically say that right now, there's 3 division winners and 5 wildcards in each conference.

Completely agree, do not understand the complaining on this point at all from people who seem not to like wildcards in general. The wildcards are decreasing from 5 per conference down to 2, with greater emphasis on the divisions. I'm ok with this.

The playoff set-up was absolutely perfect, why did they have to **** it up? I'm truly disappointed about this.

I was more hesitant about the playoff changes, but...

I'm probably the oldest guy on this board and I would bet the only one who was at the first playoff games... It was so much better IMO. I hate the meaningless first round opponent. The devils struggled with attendance first round wise in the Byrne when they changed the format. I call it the Atlanta Braves syndrome. The Devils make the playoffs so often that the first round becomes devalued, just like it did with the Braves and now the Yankess with the ticket prices but if you put Philly, Pitt, NYI.NYR as first round opponents that round has juice and it created even more hatred within the rivalry. I would be interested in any other over 40 peoples POV cause we are the only ones who have seen this. Remember until 1982 it was 1-16 seeded league wise..In 83 they went to division format and in 93-94 to what we see now. The new playoff is kinda a hybrid is it a bracket like the NBA or will they re seed again in Rd 2?

Devils86 makes a great point. From an attendance/business perspective, makes more sense for the league to push rivalry matchups to the first two rounds when interest may be weaker for 'spoiled' fanbases. By the third round, the matchup should not matter as it is a conference final. I'm sure our front office is loving realignment as it will allow them to maintain or increase price levels for the first two rounds.

 

[Bleedred]

So next year do we play every team at least twice? Like the western teams?

 

[Brick City]

So next year do we play every team at least twice? Like the western teams?

Yeah, home and away with all western teams.

There was a big debate about this on BoH between people who wanted more division games and those who were alright with less to allow for the home and aways with the western conference. Seems to be a lot of eastern conference fans who don't really care about the western conference teams (myself included, but I'm fine with the change). I suspect it will be tougher for the team to move tickets for some of those games though - western conference opponents on a weekday have often been an attendance nightmare.

 

[davebenj]

Everything about the realignment is awful.

Agreed. both in a hockey fan perspective and a devil fan perspective (there in no team I want in our division less than Carolina)

 

[davebenj]

I probably should know this but this won't be where teams play their division rivals 8 times right? I ****ing HATED that

 

[AfroThunder396]

Florida and Tampa should be in the Atlantic, Columbus and Pittsburgh should be in the Central.

Hate the divisional playoffs.

Hate 16 teams in the East and 14 in the West.

The old system was fine, they could have just shuffled some teams around and it would have been much better.

WIN -> Northwest
MIN -> Central
NAS -> Southeast

Boom.

 

[Emperoreddy]

Florida and Tampa should be in the Atlantic, Columbus and Pittsburgh should be in the Central.

Hate the divisional playoffs.

Hate 16 teams in the East and 14 in the West.

The old system was fine, they could have just shuffled some teams around and it would have been much better.

WIN -> Northwest
MIN -> Central
NAS -> Southeast

Boom.

League would never split Pitt and Philly, or anyone in the Atlantic for that matter.

 

[ScottyK]

Tom Gulitti ‏@TGfireandice
Kovalchuk, who expressed dislike for the realignment plan 2 weeks ago, wasn't even aware NHLPA approved it last week.

 

[ScottyK]

Tom Gulitti ‏@TGfireandice
Realignment Board of Governors vote in Dec. 2011 was reported as 26-4 in favor. Heard it was 28 yes votes this time, 1 no, 1 abstention.

 

[apice3*]

Hockey Central ‏@SNHockeyCentral
Bettman: Looking at "fan-friendly" names that are geographically based.

If we play in the Messier division I'm rioting.

I'm pretty sure they mean that it'll be named after the location when they say geographically based. No idea what fan-friendly means by those standards.

 

[apice3*]

Florida and Tampa should be in the Atlantic, Columbus and Pittsburgh should be in the Central.

Hate the divisional playoffs.

Hate 16 teams in the East and 14 in the West.

The old system was fine, they could have just shuffled some teams around and it would have been much better.

WIN -> Northwest
MIN -> Central
NAS -> Southeast

Boom.

Florida and Tampa have to travel far under the new realignment no matter what 8-teams division they are in, so might as well keep the Atlantic rivalries.

I agree it should remain 3x5. But omg time zones. I hate to alert the authorities, but all East teams aside from Detroit have an added 12 games vs. West teams. So 14 teams in the East just got worse travel plans, which is fair I guess

 

[AfroThunder396]

League would never split Pitt and Philly, or anyone in the Atlantic for that matter.

Crosby vs. Detroit + Canada would draw mucho dollars, more than Crosby vs. Philly.

 

[ScottyK]

Tom Gulitti ‏@TGfireandice
Devils GM Lou Lamoriello said a couple of weeks ago he preferred alignment stay similar to what it is now, but Devils voted "yes".

 

[NJDevs26]

The "wildcard" bit isn't the real problem there. We basically have a system where every team but the division leaders is a "wildcard" by the definition they're using here. The problem I see is guaranteeing the top three teams from each division a playoff spot, and the divisional playoffs. Why do that?

Yeah people are making too much of that. Instead of three automatic berths and five wild-cards that aren't called wild-cards, we have six automatic berths and two wild-cards that are called such.

What annoys me is it seems like the NHL is trying to have its cake and eat it too. If you're going to have all-division playoffs, don't give me a system where you could potentially have had the Devils win the Northeast Division playoff bracket last year, or LA winning the Central Division bracket. Either have all division playoffs, or just straight conference 1-8 playoffs. This seems like a bad way to try to mix the two. But at least they didn't fundamentally alter the playoffs, it's still four seven-game series.

Plus I don't see how hard it would have been to keep Columbus out West, have fifteen teams in each conference and give every team a truly 'equal' chance to make the playoffs. Maybe they wanted to screw the East teams intentionally because we have it better with travel