How would you realign the NHL?

Question

There are complaints about the current alignment by the western teams due to the travel schedule. The five Northwest division teams, for example, are spread out over a much larger geographic area than the Atlantic division.

How would you realign if you had the chance to fix this?

Answer 1

This is a hard question to answer. The realignment question will get legs this season as this is the third year of the unbalanced schedule (and all of the teams will have now played each other at home and on the road over the period). So, one idea will be to go back to a balanced schedule where each team plays the other 29 at least once each season.

That being said, the realignment idea is touchy. First of all, the biggest complaint (which I believe comes from Doug Risebrough, the Minnesota GM) is that the Northwest DIvision covers the most time zones and is unfriendly for fans to see their hometown team play road games on TV. Some of the games start as late as 9:30pm in the local market and contributes to low ratings. Conversely, when the Canucks come to Minnesota, the games start at 5:00 or 5:30 local time in Vancouver so people cannot get home in time to watch.

The prevailing idea is to match teams by time zone as much as possible. This idea works great for the Eastern Conference, where all of the teams are in the Eastern Time Zone. The Western Conference does not fare as well. They break down in the following zones:

Eastern: Columbus, Detroit
Central: Chicago, Dallas, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis
Mountain: Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Phoenix
Pacific: Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Vancouver

Unfortunately, no teams are being contracted or moved. So, it makes no sense to move teams from the Eastern Conference to the Western Conference.

Here is what I would propose:
Wales Conference (formerly Eastern):
Patrick Division (Atlantic): New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins

Adams Division (Northeast): Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs

Ross Division (Southeast): Atlanta Thrashers, Carolina Hurricanes, Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals

Campbell Conference (Western):
Norris Division (Central): Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Nashville Predators, St. Louis Blues

Smythe Division (Northwest): Calgary Flames, Colorado Avalanche, Dallas Stars, Edmonton Oilers, Minnesota Wild

Vezina Division (Pacific): Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, Phoenix Coyotes, San Jose Sharks, Vancouver Canucks

In the end, all I have really proposed is to trade Dallas for Vancouver and also to bring back the old (with a couple of additions) conference and division names.

Unless there is some team movement (preferably from the Southeast US), this would be the most equitable solution.

Answer 2

EDIT: After having read the answers, I like the idea put forth by Puck Dat.

With the current teams:

Boston Bruins
Montreal Canadiens
New Jersey Devils
New York Islanders
New York Rangers
Ottawa Senators
Philadelphia Flyers
Washington Capitals

Atlanta Thrashers
Buffalo Sabres
Carolina Hurricanes
Florida Panthers
Pittsburgh Penguins
Tampa Bay Lightning
Toronto Maple Leafs

Chicago Blackhawks
Columbus Blue Jackets
Dallas Stars
Detroit Red Wings
Minnesota Wild
Nashville Predators
St. Louis Blues

Anaheim Ducks
Calgary Flames
Colorado Avalanche
Edmonton Oilers
Los Angeles Kings
Phoenix Coyotes
San Jose Sharks
Vancouver Canucks

< < < OR > > >

Boston Bruins
Buffalo Sabres
Montreal Canadiens
New Jersey Devils
New York Islanders
New York Rangers
Ottawa Senators
Philadelphia Flyers
Toronto Maple Leafs
Washington Capitals

Atlanta Thrashers
Carolina Hurricanes
Chicago Blackhawks
Columbus Blue Jackets
Detroit Red Wings
Florida Panthers
Nashville Predators
Pittsburgh Penguins
St. Louis Blues
Tampa Bay Lightning

Anaheim Ducks
Calgary Flames
Colorado Avalanche
Dallas Stars
Edmonton Oilers
Los Angeles Kings
Minnesota Wild
Phoenix Coyotes
San Jose Sharks
Vancouver Canucks

Answer 3

there is no real logical way to improve the divisions of the NHL short of a major expansion of the league as the western conference cities are several hundred miles apart in places.

examples for western conference travel
for Anaheim to play in Detroit they must travel 2284 miles, 2247 to play in Columbus, and 2004 miles to Nashville. Vancouver travels 2591 miles to play in Nashville, while the longest travel for an eastern conference vs. eastern conference game would be Montreal vs. Florida where the teams would be forced to travel 1657 miles compared to the western conference traveling nearly 3000 miles within the conference for games. so the most logical way to remedy the problem is to either contract teams or make the league bigger with 4 conferences rather than 2. neither is likely to happen so the problem will remain. however, i as a fan am in favor of all teams playing 1 home game and 1 road game against all other teams in the league, then fill the schedule with the conference match-ups and the divisional rivalries to get to 82 games, which still wouldnt work very well so there is no answer.

Answer 4

Instead of moving the teams around, I'd like them to adopt a schedule like the NBA, same amount of games, same amount of teams, roughly the same number of months, it's possible. Each team plays every other team twice and the same conference 4 times. This season for example the three eastern Canadian teams don't play the three western Canadian teams at all, this is no good.

Answer 5

Firehorse:
11 months? Where you get that figure? Season from Oct to Apr. Playoffs until mid June. There are nearly 3 months between cup being awarded and start of camps. 9 months yes, 11 NO. Stick to your knitting girl.

Hockey could do what English soccer does and have a premier and second division and to hell with alignment. Premier teams play to get shot at cup. Top 8 make playoffs. Bottom three get sent to second tier and top three second tier move up. Then if teams like Chicago and the Bruins will actually have to work on creating a good hockey team.

Answer 6

Western Hockey Conference Pacific div L.A SJ Ana Edm Calg Colorado Vancouver PHx Central Div Winnipeg Chicago Minnesota St.Louis Nashville Dallas Eastern Hockey Conference Atlantic Div N.Y R N.Y I N.J Philly Washington Carolina T.B FLA NorthEast Div Pittsburgh Columbus Detriot Montreal Boston Buffalo Ottawa Toronto Playoffs 1st round Division 1 vs. 4 /2 vs. 3 etc. 2nd round semi- conference finals re-seed based on reg. season point total.

Answer 7

quite honestly, based a a geographical stand point, the NHL did a great job in making the divisions the way they are. by changing up the teams, i really cant see traveling for the players to get any easier.

Answer 8

i would move the wild to the central division so then it will be at least a little harder for the red wings to win the division. but then there would be 6 teams in the central and only 4 in the northwest and the wild couldn't play the canucks as much. so i think it should stay the same

Answer 9

Make a Canadian Division....sort the rest out from there. Maybe group the teams with the worst attendance in one division.....hoping that they fold next season.

Answer 10

hey firehorse, baseball plays forever also. 162 games a year to come down to 8 teams? Thats worse than hockey. If you're a hockey fan, the current amount of games is great.