94 replies to this topic

[Travis]

The problem is the statement that each conference would have one division with 8 teams & one with 7. I would assume that the East & South divisions would be in the Eastern Conference and Midwest & Pacific in the Western. If that's the case & both Detroit & Columbus move to the Eastern, that means moving an existing Eastern team over in addtion to Winnipeg. To do that, you would have to move a team futher east than either Detroit or Columbus over. I don't see that happening.

Yeah, with Detroit and Columbus moving there would be 8 teams in each 'Eastern' conference and 7 teams in the 'West'.

[GMRwings1983]

This does bring an interesting question, what could we expect these divisions to be? I tried my best at guessing, based on geography - but obviously the South division would be a pretty liberal name as far as that goes.

South
Tampa Bay Lightning
Florida Panthers
Carolina Hurricanes
Washington Capitals
New Jersey Devils
Philadelphia Flyers
Columbus Blue Jackets
New York Islanders


Obviously things get a pretty ambiguous when it comes to the South in my breakdown, as I wasn't really sure what would qualify a team to be considered 'South'. In a breakdown like this, I feel like it makes a lot more sense to have Columbus play in the Midwest division.

Therein lies the problems. There's too many teams in the Northeast to put them in any other division.

New Jersey
New York Isles
New York Rangers
Pittsburgh
Philly
Boston
Ottawa
Montreal
Toronto
Buffalo
Washington

That's 11 teams not separated by much in terms of geographical difference. Now that I think about it, the current format actually makes more sense, despite my wishes to have the Wings move conferences.

Edited by GMRwings1983, 23 June 2011 - 01:36 PM.

[stevkrause]

Therein lies the problems. There's too many teams in the Northeast to put them in any other division.


Now that I think about it, the current format actually makes more sense, despite my wishes to have the Wings move conferences.

A re-alignment is far overdue and I think the real solution is balanced travel, with divisions spread out not by geography, but by making all travel equal. Either way, at least this proposal is an improvement from the current one...

[GMRwings1983]

A re-alignment is far overdue and I think the real solution is balanced travel, with divisions spread out not by geography, but by making all travel equal. Either way, at least this proposal is an improvement from the current one...

The travel will never be equal in between conferences, because there's always going to be less travel in the East.

I'm almost inclined to say that there should be two Conferences, no divisions, 15 teams per conference, with the top 8 making the playoffs in each Conference. The Wings would move East, while Winnipeg would move West.

That seems simple enough, and the Western teams would all do equal travel amongst themselves, with there being no divisional format.

[ogreslayer]

To really throw things up in the air, here's my take regardless of the whole talk of Detroit & Columbus moving to the Eastern...

East Division (EC)
Boston
Montreal
Ottawa
NY Rangers
NY Islanders
New Jersey
Phily
Pittsburgh

South Division (EC)
Washington
Carolina
Tampa Bay
Florida
Nashville
St. Louis
Dallas

Midwest Division (WC)
Buffalo
Toronto
Detroit
Columbus
Chicago
Minnesota
Winnipeg

Pacific Division (WC)
Edmonton
Calgary
Vancouver
San Jose
LA
Anaheim
Phoenix
Colorado

[cusimano_brothers]

Who exactly is Bettman reinventing the wheel for? Besides, he should wait until his Coyotes move.

[xtrememachine1]

The problem is the statement that each conference would have one division with 8 teams & one with 7. I would assume that the East & South divisions would be in the Eastern Conference and Midwest & Pacific in the Western. If that's the case & both Detroit & Columbus move to the Eastern, that means moving an existing Eastern team over in addtion to Winnipeg. To do that, you would have to move a team futher east than either Detroit or Columbus over. I don't see that happening.

The NHL was unbalanced in the 1980's with its conference alignment where there was one extra team in the East, so I don't think that's a deal breaker. These eastern time zone teams NEED to move out of the West. Maybe it wasn't such a huge deal when the Wings moved out West in the 80's with teams like Chicago, Minnesota, Toronto, St Louis all nearby but there are a lot more teams on the west coast now (Anaheim, SJ, Dallas, Phoenix) which makes this flying across the continent over and over again ridiculous. Its time for a change.

[ogreslayer]

Who exactly is Bettman reinventing the wheel for? Besides, he should wait until his Coyotes move.

Or maybe the long awaited move of the Islanders to Kansas City.

[NeverForgetMac25]

I love the idea of Detroit being East, but I hate the idea of unbalanced divisions. I'm down with this proposal though *if and only if* they scrap the idea of the top 4 teams in each division making the playoffs. It's the same garbage in the MLB with the Brewers division having 6 teams while an AL division only has 4. When the top team automatically makes the playoffs, it makes it a hell of a lot easier having less teams to get ahead of. So, the division with 7 teams will have it easy while the group of 8 will have to claw harder year-in and year-out.

I love the idea of 4 divisions, playing each team to atleast a home-and-home and most importantly the Wings moving East. The only thing I would change would be making the two division winners the top seeds with the bottom six in either division rounding out the group.

For the most part though, \that Bettman did very well with this one.

[cusimano_brothers]

Or maybe the long awaited move of the Islanders to Kansas City.

Maybe not: TSN .

[ogreslayer]

Maybe not: TSN .

The key piece being if the voters approve. If not, Kansas City here I come...

[Jersey Wing]

LOVE the idea that the first round would be divisional matchups. The reseeding is fine but that kind of was happening anyway.

[Travis]

Maybe not: TSN .

It's cool. The Islanders will move anyway. In the future a team that's fledgling in its location will then move to Long Island to occupy the vacant arena.

[A.T.Hun]

I like the concept. I really don't like it that currently the Wings only get to play the Leafs once in the blue moon. I don't think they should go back to the names (Norris, Prince of Wales, et al). After all, those were only in use from 1974-93 out of the NHL's 94 year history. Plus, hearing the "Norris" division always reminded me of how the Norris family drove the Red Wings into the ground and the "Adams" division always reminded me of how Jack Adams traded Terrible Ted to the Blackhawks.

I also think that they should rename the Adams Trophy the William "Scotty" Bowman Trophy.

Edited by A.T.Hun, 23 June 2011 - 02:33 PM.

[Hockey13Playa]

Wow, very interesting. I like the idea of this. I am all for the wings moving east due to time zone differences but I actually like playing the west coast teams and the "sort of rivalries" that have built up in the past few years. However I think being back in the east with the orginal 6 teams the NHL could once again gain some great rivalries and interesting matchups. Can't wait to here more on this and to see how it exactly looks on paper once its 100% ironed out.


Side note: Gary Bettman is still a little ***** though!

[lookalive07]

There's still a possibility of a Northern/Southern Conference setup. Adopting the 6 division setup, most of the divisions remain intact while some get a swap of a few teams. Both conferences travel from coast to coast.

Northern Conference:
Northwest:
Vancouver
Calgary
Edmonton
Winnipeg
Minnesota

Midwest:
Chicago
Detroit
Toronto
Ottawa
Montreal

Northeast:
Buffalo
Boston
New York Rangers
New York Islanders
New Jersey

Southern Conference:
Southwest:
San Jose
Anaheim
Los Angeles
Phoenix
Colorado

Southeast:
Dallas
Florida
Tampa Bay
St. Louis
Nashville

Atlantic:
Carolina
Washington
Columbus
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia


My favorite part about this setup is that all of the Original Six teams are in one conference.

[Bannedforlife]

The travel will never be equal in between conferences, because there's always going to be less travel in the East.

I'm almost inclined to say that there should be two Conferences, no divisions, 15 teams per conference, with the top 8 making the playoffs in each Conference. The Wings would move East, while Winnipeg would move West.

That seems simple enough, and the Western teams would all do equal travel amongst themselves, with there being no divisional format.

That's not true, they could do it like baseball's American and National leagues. Then all teams would have to travel a ton. Or they could do a North-South Conference. I guess the only way to make it equal is to make it so everyone has to travel more, not less.

[Bannedforlife]

There's still a possibility of a Northern/Southern Conference setup. Adopting the 6 division setup, most of the divisions remain intact while some get a swap of a few teams. Both conferences travel from coast to coast.

Northern Conference:
Northwest:
Vancouver
Calgary
Edmonton
Winnipeg
Minnesota

Midwest:
Chicago
Detroit
Toronto
Ottawa
Montreal

Northeast:
Buffalo
Boston
New York Rangers
New York Islanders
New Jersey

Southern Conference:
Southwest:
San Jose
Anaheim
Los Angeles
Phoenix
Colorado

Southeast:
Dallas
Florida
Tampa Bay
St. Louis
Nashville

Atlantic:
Carolina
Washington
Columbus
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia


My favorite part about this setup is that all of the Original Six teams are in one conference.

I like this the most. Balanced travel for everyone and it doesn't change the current playoff format. Too much change too fast, not good.

[lookalive07]

Yeah, there's no way really to make everything completely 100% fair, but the North/South format at least keeps most of what was the West intact (keeping two out of the three divisions completely intact and placing one each in the North/South conferences) where those teams have to travel much further for interdivision play than teams in the East ever have to.

[sleepwalker]

You guys realize the only reason Bettman is putting the possibility of Detroit moving east in a couple seasons out there is because he knows (just like we all do) that in December 2012 the ancient Mayans will return from the seventh dimension and team up with the Reptilian aliens from Nibiru to destroy the earth and enslave humanity.