217 replies to this topic

[LeftWinger]

Funny, when the Wings were the Best in the West and Better than All The Rest, Bettman would have no talk of the Wings moving East.  Now that the Eastern teams seem to be better than the Western teams and the Wings in a rebuild, he is all about them being moved to a conference to where they will get their assess kicked and probably miss the playoffs 10 years in a row... Your hatred for Detroit has grown tiresome Gary, dont let me see you walking down the street alone!

[Andrew]

It sounds like the schedule format will be:

Home/Home vs the other 22 teams (44 games)

Remaining 38 games vs the conference (5 or 6 per opponent).

 

So although the Wings will be in the "East" we will be playing the Pens, Flyers, Rangers, etc as many times as we play the western teams, 2 each.

Edited by Andrew, 23 February 2013 - 10:36 PM.

[irishock]

Ugh what?  No it's not...

 

I think  it is tougher than the West nowadays. You've got Pittsburgh, Boston, Philly and New Jersey playing real physical hockey, while in the West you have St. Louis and maybe Anaheim on a good day. 

[heretic69]

Playing in Florida multiple times a year would be f***in amazing!

[DeGraa55]

 
Ugh what?  No it's not...

Pretty sure this is common knowledge. You know sun rises in the east and sets in west. But since you are unaware first I suggest you actually eastern conference games keep track of the hit total. Then do it for west.

Next I looked up stats just now for you. 8 of the top 10 in hits are from the east. And 6 from the 11-20 range.

6 of those guys are from for, mtl, buf and Ott. You knows teams that would be in our division.

[Richdg]

Ugh what?  No it's not...

Now that is just silly. The east from top to bottom is a physical conference. Always has been. That doesn't mean they are better just a different style of play. Out west only the Ducks, kings, and blues play a similier style to the eastern teams. You think we have injury issues now, wait untill we have to play physical hockey every night. baring changes of course.....

[SaCkaveli20]

This is great news. Good for fans of all teams!

[King Crane]

DET/TOR

DET/BOS

DET/MTL

+Limited Western trips

Please please please let this realignment happen

[DeGraa55]

DET/TOR
DET/BOS
DET/MTL
+Limited Western trips
Please please please let this realignment happen

Plus home and home with every other team is awesome!!!

[FireCaptain]

Me for one. 

 

Buf, Tor and Bos are fine. However, I couldn't give two sharts about the Habs.

 

Much rather watch a Nash/Det tilt that one involving the CH.

 

I love this. Wish they would just swap Detroit and Winnipeg to keep it balanced between east/west, but geographically it makes sense to move Columbus as well. Not really fair to the divisions with eight teams compared to seven.

However, Toronto, Boston and Montreal is a beautiful thing. How can any Red Wings fan not like that over Nashville and Columbus?

[kylee]

Funny, when the Wings were the Best in the West and Better than All The Rest, Bettman would have no talk of the Wings moving East.  Now that the Eastern teams seem to be better than the Western teams and the Wings in a rebuild, he is all about them being moved to a conference to where they will get their assess kicked and probably miss the playoffs 10 years in a row... Your hatred for Detroit has grown tiresome Gary, dont let me see you walking down the street alone!

 

you act like were in 15th place

[evilmrt]

Ok guys, go ahead and check out tonight's HNIC Hotstove...the topic is the realignment plan. Haven't even watched it yet myself:

 

http://www.cbc.ca/sp.../#id=2338204443

[stevie for president]

Anyone else excited to be in the same conference as Yzerman's Lightning (as well as 3 original 6 teams)?

 

Also, I guess this opens the door for 2 western expansion teams (or 1 west 1 east with the panthers relocating west).

[evilmrt]

Pretty cool realignment plan...I think everyone here is happy to see Detroit split up from Columbus...that never developed into a rivalry even though the teams are basically on top of each other. Very happy to see the Wings back with the Leafs, and now Montreal and Boston as well. And Stevie Y in TB. Very very cool. 

 

Surprised to hear about a wild-card, especially after my post about it was laughed at on here. 

[Wings_Dynasty]

On one hand I love that we would be in the East. Better game start times and less wear on a traditionally older team.

 

On the other hand I think that we are in the weakest and most boring conference. The 2 West conferences are rife with existing rivalries. The other East conference is even more stacked with rivalries, including the hottest one in recent memory (PIT/PHI). Although we have 4 of the O6 in the conference, the only real rivalry existing right now is BOS/MTL. DET/TOR would most likely start up again just because of the history, and BOS may also become a heated rivalry, but we have both Florida teams and Buffalo, not to mention a historically BORING Ottawa team. 

 

I think the positives outweigh the negatives, but I also think that under this alignment we will definitely see the most boring, un-heated hockey, at least in the first season. 

[Wings10]

I would be very happy if this happened.

[evilmrt]

I logged in just to complain about this...  I know some might remember me being vocal on this.  I got little problem with the idea... but why must they make 8 and 7 team conferences?!?!? that just isn't fair.  Why not just move Detroit East if you are going to do that?  I just don't get that crap at all.  If the only change they made was moving Detroit east then the playoffs won't be ruined and no one has a statistically worse chance of making the playoffs.  The only people screwed are Columbus and they don't deserve anything anyways.    I am again tweeting with the #moveDetroitEast and #nounbalancedconferences tags.  I want to see us play boston Mon Ott and TOR more... but I don't want us missing the playoffs because we have to play against 8 teams instead of 7... that is bulls***.

 

Maj, what do you think about the unbalanced divisions in the context of the wild-card idea that they're going to propose? 

[PavelValerievichDatsyuk]

As I live in Montreaal, I'm hoping for this. I only got to see one wings game last 2 years (it was the one last year where Lidstrom was injured and it was 6 or 7 to 0 for the habs.)

[stevie for president]

On one hand I love that we would be in the East. Better game start times and less wear on a traditionally older team.

 

On the other hand I think that we are in the weakest and most boring conference. The 2 West conferences are rife with existing rivalries. The other East conference is even more stacked with rivalries, including the hottest one in recent memory (PIT/PHI). Although we have 4 of the O6 in the conference, the only real rivalry existing right now is BOS/MTL. DET/TOR would most likely start up again just because of the history, and BOS may also become a heated rivalry, but we have both Florida teams and Buffalo, not to mention a historically BORING Ottawa team. 

 

I think the positives outweigh the negatives, but I also think that under this alignment we will definitely see the most boring, un-heated hockey, at least in the first season. 

 

I have to disagree with the boring thing. The 4 original 6 teams have traditional rivalries (boston-toronto, boston-montreal, toronto-montreal, toronto-detroit are all existing rivalries, detroit will develop rivalries with montreal and boston too when we actually play them more than once a season) Then theres ottawa-toronto, ottawa-buffalo had a thing a few years ago when both teams were good, and toronto-buffalo. I think Detroit-Tampa could be interesting with the Yzerman factor, and I'm assuming within 5 years this conference will lose the Panthers and gain Quebec City (which will have a rivalry with montreal). Finally, divisional playoffs will more than likely cause non-geographic/non-traditional rivalries. Think about Detroit-San Jose or Chicago-Vancouver today or even Detroit-Colorado 15 years ago. Battling the same team in multiple playoffs will forge new rivalries.

[VM1138]

Meh. I like the idea, but we lose one boring opponent and gain two. I hate being force fed manufactured rivalries. That's all divisions do. But oh well.