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Majsheppard

Realignment decided - 4 Conferences

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In case anyone wanted to see how the new conferences are aligned in terms of geography...

nhlrealignment.png

That map shows just how screwed the Florida teams got, and just how much leverage the teams in Conference D have. Must be nice to be able to ride your bike to away games if you wanted to.

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That map shows just how screwed the Florida teams got, and just how much leverage the teams in Conference D have. Must be nice to be able to ride your bike to away games if you wanted to.

yep, why not just put philly and pittsburgh in the northeast and put the two florida teams in the atlantic is beyond me. i wonder who the 4 teams who voted No were, my guess is the ny area teams lol

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That map shows just how screwed the Florida teams got, and just how much leverage the teams in Conference D have. Must be nice to be able to ride your bike to away games if you wanted to.

Exactly.

yep, why not just put philly and pittsburgh in the northeast and put the two florida teams in the atlantic is beyond me. i wonder who the 4 teams who voted No were, my guess is the ny area teams lol

Because as it is, the league's 2 most marketable stars/teams (Crosby/Pens, Ovechkin/Caps) could conceivably meet up in the playoffs every single year. Seperating Pittsburgh and Washington would effectively kill one of the best marketing tools the NHL could have, before they even had a chance to use it.

IMO, there's a lot to like, and a lot to dislike about the new alignment. As it is, it's possible to have a Chicago/Vancouver Stanley Cup finals. Imagine how intense that series could be...

If I had to guess at the conference names, I'd bet the NHL goes with something unimaginative, and use something like this (Color Coded to the map)...

WESTERN (GREEN PINS)

Anaheim Ducks

Calgary Flames

Colorado Avalanche

Edmonton Oilers

Los Angeles Kings

Phoenix Coyotes

San Jose Sharks

Vancouver Canucks

CENTRAL (RED PINS)

Chicago Blackhawks

Columbus Blue Jackets

Dallas Stars

Detroit Red Wings

Minnesota Wild

Nashville Predators

St. Louis Blues

Winnipeg Jets

EASTERN (YELLOW PINS)

Boston Bruins

Buffalo Sabres

Florida Panthers

Montreal Canadiens

Ottawa Senators

Tampa Bay Lightning

Toronto Maple Leafs

ATLANTIC (BLUE PINS)

Carolina Hurricanes

New Jersey Devils

New York Islanders

New York Rangers

Philadelphia Flyers

Pittsburgh Penguins

Washington Capitals

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That is correct. We could play the Pens in the semifinals and the Sharks in the Finals. This also means, we'll never play anyone in our conference beyond the 2nd round.

Alright, I'm on board with this, then. Being able to potentially see San Jose in a Cup final would be epic. The only team in our new conference worth playing in a final would be Chicago, but I guess that's a fair trade-off. And being able to play Eastern teams in the playoffs before the final could be interesting, too.

EDIT: Just imagine, the other teams in the Midwest/Central now know they will always face Chicago or Detroit in the playoffs, haha. Sucks for them, I guess. Also likely that every second round matchup will be Detroit-Chicago. Pretty much disqualifies everyone else from advancing.

Edited by VM1138

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I'm not the hugest fan of the new alignment but it's really not so bad. There are some teams who get a bit of the short end of the stick but overall it's probably an improvement over the current travel demands of a lot of teams. Or at least it's more evenly spread out across the league.

The one advantage I do see for the Wings is that by the time they (hopefully) get to the third round 2/3 chance of playing a team in the Eastern Time Zone. Historically (relative past), under the current alignment, the teams that realistically could face off against the Wings in the third round would be something like Anaheim (past), Vancouver, San Jose, and Chicago. Of those teams that the Wings have faced or could face none of them are in EST (with chicago obviously being the closest).

I haven't done the math for it but at first glance I'd say that the chances of the Wings going through to the finals (all four rounds) without playing a West Coast team are dramatically better under the new alignment when compared to the current alignment.

Also, I know a lot of people would rather not face SJ in the playoffs this year but wouldn't it be sweet to face them in the WCF and eliminate them. That'd be such a sweet way to say goodbye to the Western Conference

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I understand ever one is upset that we didn't get to go east, but let's face it for playoff reasons and Stanley cup contenders. This just made us one of the top contenders year in and year out. 5-6 contenders will be eliminated before we even have a chance to face them like I said earlier... Only 2 of phily, Pitt, wash. NYR, NJ, la, SJ, Anahiem and Van. We only could possibly face two of those teams in a playoff run every year... No more having to go through Phoenix, then SJ, then Vancouver just to get to the Finals

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I understand ever one is upset that we didn't get to go east, but let's face it for playoff reasons and Stanley cup contenders. This just made us one of the top contenders year in and year out. 5-6 contenders will be eliminated before we even have a chance to face them like I said earlier... Only 2 of phily, Pitt, wash. NYR, NJ, la, SJ, Anahiem and Van. We only could possibly face two of those teams in a playoff run every year... No more having to go through Phoenix, then SJ, then Vancouver just to get to the Finals

True but the Wings would have to get through their own conference first. Maybe a lot of the other teams in the conference don't have the kind of hype appeal that makes the public fawn over them but they are still very good teams.

-Chicago, of course, is a top contender.

-Dallas and Minnesota are making big strides on getting better.

-Nashville and St. Louis are very solid teams as well.

The main point is that a lot of those teams are getting better and it's not as if the Wings only have to worry about Chicago, especially with the increasing trend in parity and the looming shift in eras after Lidstrom retires.

I'm not saying that Detroit won't be good. We really don't know at this point. I'm just thinking the whole "alignment has guaranteed another 20 years of playoffs" reaction is premature.

Edited by Red Wings Addict

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True but the Wings would have to get through their own conference first. Maybe a lot of the other teams in the conference don't have the kind of hype appeal that makes the public fawn over them but they are still very good teams.

-Chicago, of course, is a top contender.

-Dallas and Minnesota are making big strides on getting better.

-Nashville and St. Louis are very solid teams as well.

The main point is that a lot of those teams are getting better and it's not as if the Wings only have to worry about Chicago, especially with the increasing trend in parity and the looming shift in eras after Lidstrom retires.

I'm not saying that Detroit won't be good. We really don't know at this point. I'm just thinking the whole "alignment has guaranteed another 20 years of playoffs" reaction is premature.

TRUE.

Has anyone looked at the Western standings lately? Of the top 6 teams, 5 will be in the Central Conference. As it stands:

Minnesota (Won't last)

Chicago (Umpteen games more played)

DETROIT (Lidstrom retiring soon)

Dallas (On the upturn, probably to stay)

Vancouver

St. Louis (Good young team)

Its gonna get hairy come playoffs, for sure.

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Yes good up and comers but would u rather have a dog fight between La, SJ, Anaheim, Van and pho... Or battle Philly, Washington, Pitt, NYR and NJ.... I rather have St. Louis, Chicago, minny, Nashville and Dallas... Those teams may be decent or getting better but they are no LA, Vancouver or Phily, Boston or a legit true contender... Detroit and Chicago are the only cup threats in our division

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This is absolutely awful. If you watch playoff hockey for the next 20 years, you are going to get sick and tired of seeing the same teams over and over. Think about it.

Yea because it's not like we haven't seen the same teams the last 5 years... (Phoenix, San Jose, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Anaheim)

Edited by 8 Legged RedWing

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True but the Wings would have to get through their own conference first. Maybe a lot of the other teams in the conference don't have the kind of hype appeal that makes the public fawn over them but they are still very good teams.

-Chicago, of course, is a top contender.

-Dallas and Minnesota are making big strides on getting better.

-Nashville and St. Louis are very solid teams as well.

The main point is that a lot of those teams are getting better and it's not as if the Wings only have to worry about Chicago, especially with the increasing trend in parity and the looming shift in eras after Lidstrom retires.

I'm not saying that Detroit won't be good. We really don't know at this point. I'm just thinking the whole "alignment has guaranteed another 20 years of playoffs" reaction is premature.

II understand what your saying, I'm not saying its a forsure 20 years but I like our chances better is take a couple getting better teams with no true cores intact... Besides Chicagos CORE instead of dealing with teams that have true cores on their team and will be contenders for the next 5-10 years. The other side is who knows in 10-15 years from now maybe prospects don't develop and we end up being horrible lol

For everyone saying the Florida teams got screwed, the longest straight line distance in that new conference is Florida (Miami) to Montreal (1388.9 miles) That basically the same as Edmonton to Phoenix in the new format (1387.4 miles).

http://www.sportmapworld.com/map/ice-hockey/north-america/nhl/

I think everyone is saying they got screwed because all the conferences are set up geographically, and I think anybody who can read. Map would just say... WTF???? When you have to fly over an entire conference to get to yours something's not right. With that situation it's almost just like having Winnipeg in the southeast lol... It could have easily been done by moving Two teams to the northeast ifron the Atlantic...

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Details mon!

http://eye-on-hockey.blogs.cbssports.com/mcc/blogs/entry/27694626/33719669

No word on division names yet, but Patrick/Smythe/Norris/Adams sound promising.

East Crosby/South Crosby/North Crosby/West Crosby is what I am hearing...

I just don't think they are going to go with the old names again. Although they sound the best (because we are used to them) I think they may go with something new. Will Howe, Hull or Orr be in there? Possibly Gretzky or Lemieux? How about Gretzky (conference with Edmonton in it) Lemieux (Conf with Pit) Yzerman (Detroit Conf.) Lefleur (Montreal Conf.)

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theres some cons but overall i like the fact that we play each team at least twice.. also obviously shorter travel will help out.

only thing not to like is the unbalanced conferences.. of course the NHL favors the east as usual. should be 2 conferences (one 8 team division and one 7 team division per conference) with moving a team (preferably detroit) to the east. at least then two sides would be even....

playoffs could be something like top 2 or 3 teams in each division make playoffs then the next 4 or 2 best records in the conference (respectively) make the playoffs as well..

not sure how i'd want the seeding to go for playoffs to go but at least this would make making the playoffs a little more fair..

idk just an idea.

also doesn't the NHLPA have to approve the realignment still? sorry if this was already addressed, i didn't read all 8 pages of the discussion

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I for one like this realignment. and am pretty impressed with the fact that Bettman got this so easily done.

world is full of haters and the guy gets fair share of blame for everything starting from erection problems

to starvation of malaysian flying ants... but this realignment is his huge success and will probably bring

a lot of pennies to the NHL treasury. money to pay those Florida teams, among others.

as for Penguins and Caps... if you look at the stats of 3 recent years, their conference will be the most

competitive at this moment and it's never sure both of them will advance into playoffs at all.

Bruins on the other hand...

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That map shows just how screwed the Florida teams got, and just how much leverage the teams in Conference D have. Must be nice to be able to ride your bike to away games if you wanted to.

How would you do it then. It's a geography problem. The 2 Florida teams are to far away from the cluster of the other teams in the East. The only other way to do it is group them with other teams in the south like they are currently. If you do that though, you end up splitting up the teams along the Eastern seaboard. Yes, the Florida teams have more travel but it's in the same time zone. PLUS, they get to have Montreal and Toronto play in Florida regularly and those will attract big audiences.

I think that it is about as fair as it can be. As far as riding your bike to away games, do you remember when a few years ago, teams played there division foes EIGHT TIMES a year. And that was because Lou Lamrillo wanted the Devils to be able to walk to their home games in MSG and on the Island. Now that was unfair.

I for one like this realignment. and am pretty impressed with the fact that Bettman got this so easily done.

world is full of haters and the guy gets fair share of blame for everything starting from erection problems

to starvation of malaysian flying ants... but this realignment is his huge success and will probably bring

a lot of pennies to the NHL treasury. money to pay those Florida teams, among others.

as for Penguins and Caps... if you look at the stats of 3 recent years, their conference will be the most

competitive at this moment and it's never sure both of them will advance into playoffs at all.

Bruins on the other hand...

I'm with you. As I was reading how Bettman got this passed, I was thniking, if only Obama had those kind of skills. But I digress

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This is what I understand: 4 Conferences, teams play ALL teams in other conference twice home and away. Which would be 44 games leaving (is it an 82 game or 80 game season?) 36 or 38 games to play in-conference. Not sure the amount of games, but since there are only 7 teams in two of the conferences that makes it a little uneven in the two that have 8. So not quite sure how the in-conference games are going to be played.

Playoffs, from what I understand will be the top 4 in each conference will make the playoff. The first two rounds will be within your division. The "Final Four" will be reseeded 1-4 by the records, possibly setting up a (former) east vs. west semi final's and a (former) west vs. west or east vs. east SCF. This will allow a Detroit vs. Pittsburgh semi and Detroit vs. San Jose SCF or a Penguins vs. Bruins SCF.

This is just what I heard and understand.

I wish they would've addressed the points system though, it used to be a mark of excellence to get over 100 points in a season, now we have 95 point teams missing the playoffs because of this current system. Some folks want a 3 point game, but that again will taint the 100 point mark, I say go back to the 2 points for a win, 1 for a tie and 0 for a loss (in OT as well.) This would be especially helpful in this new conference setup considering that you may have some teams not making the playoffs in a conference because the other team in another conference has less wins, but has more overtime loses than regular loses...

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