How NHL Realignment Should Be Done

Ever since the Atlanta Thrashers became yet another one of commissioner Gary Bettman's failures a couple years ago and moved to Winnipeg, there's been a bit of a problem. The NHL never bothered to realign the conferences/divisions, and as a result, the Winnipeg Jets (located up in there Canada eh) have been playing in the Thrashers' old Southeast division with the likes of the Florida Panthers. Think for a moment about how idiotic that is. The Winnipeg Jets have been playing in the same division as the Florida Panthers for two seasons. In a league where the divisions are geographically organized, this makes no sense. Let me give you a list of all the NHL teams that are in closer proximity to the Jets than the Panthers are:

• All of them

"I got 99 problems, and misplaced teams are 30 of them."

It's pretty evident that the NHL needs to do something, and in fact, they are! Talks have begun over the last couple days, and the NHL anticipates having a realignment plan in place over the next few weeks. Yeah, they said that about the CBA too..

Actually, the NHL presented a realignment proposal a little over a year ago that was rejected by the Players Association on the basis that it made no sense. Since then, the topic hasn't been brought up again, until a few days ago. The problem with the old proposal was not the league's lack of good ideas, but the horrible execution of those ideas. See, the NHL had proposed a four-conference alignment with a whole new playoff format. The good ideas here are the time-zone friendly alignment, which has potential to embrace current rivalries and breed new ones. The bad execution of those ideas are a questionable playoff format, a poorly structured regular season schedule, and the fact that the two Florida teams play in the same division as the Bruins, Canadiens, Sabres, Maple Leafs, and Senators. I thought the point of realignment was to make the divisions more geographically sound, not screw them up even more. Below is the NHL's proposal.

Why in the world are Tampa and Florida in that division? Whenever the line connecting
divisional teams has to dodge other teams (Toronto to Tampa), there's clearly a problem.

Aside from the obvious geographic problem above, there remains problems with the regular season scheduling. Basically, since some conferences have 7 teams and some have 8, the only way to have a "fair" schedule (same amount of in-conference games for each team) is for every team to have to play 86 games rather than the standard 82. And it's a pain in the bum trying to do the math to figure how they came up with it. The day the ridiculous scheduling format is put into place is the day I take the time to actually explain it. But no matter how you slice it, there's no way to divide 30 teams up evenly amongst 4 conferences. Inevitably, the regular season schedule format is going to be confusing should the NHL choose to take the 4 conference route, which I'm actually in favor of. Another issue is the NHL proposes that the top 4 teams from each conference qualify for the playoffs, and the match-ups are 1v4 and 2v3 in all 4 conferences. Eventually, you have 4 conference champions who are then seeded and battle for the Stanley Cup. The problems with this are that all the conference rivalries will be done by the end of the second round, and conferences that have a lot of top teams one year will see some of the better teams in the league eliminated more quickly. 

Now, I like the four conference idea, however, I prefer them to be called divisions. I still think two of the divisions should be considered the "Eastern Conference" and two considered the "Western Conference", for playoff purposes. I'm going to present my alignment idea for the 30 team league we have today, and I'll likely do another post in the near future covering relocation of teams and expansion of the league, which will include a new realignment plan. But for now, here's the current 30 teams:

Basically, this is the most time-zone friendly and geographically sensible alignment.Yes, I realize the Pittsburgh Penguins are not in the same division as any of their rivals, and no, I don't care. The division they'd like to be in already has 8 teams, and the only solution is a drastic change in the alignment. Which, to be honest, is probably how the NHL arrived at their stupid "Florida in the Northeast" idea. I don't pander to the Penguins like the NHL does, and this is how the alignment should look. Besides, it's not like Pittsburgh will never play the Flyers and Capitals again. Plus, what's wrong with a Pittsburgh-Detroit rivalry? Didn't they play each other in the Stanley Cup finals two years in a row not too long ago? Or a Pittsburgh-Buffalo rivalry? Didn't they play each other in the first winter classic back when the NHL didn't make it a habit of cancelling their marquee events? So to everyone bitching that the Penguins aren't getting what they want, pipe down. Pittsburgh should have never been in the "Atlantic" division in the first place. 

Regular season: I offer a slightly simpler solution than the NHL, but still unavoidably confusing:

• 7 team divisions:
• 6 games against division teams (6 teams*6 games=36 games)
• 2 games against all non-division teams (23 teams*2 games=46 games)
• 36 games+46 games=82 games.
• 8 team divisions:
• 5 games against division teams (7 teams*5games=35 games)
• 2 games against all non-division teams (22 teams*2games=44 games)
• 35 games+44 games=79 games
• An extra game will be played against 3 division teams, rotating yearly, for a total of 82 games.

Playoffs:

• Top 4 teams in each division qualify (8 from East, 8 from West). Those 8 teams are then seeded 1-8, and the playoff structure as we know it commences. 
• This allows for a wider range of playoff match-ups, as well as the possibility of two rival teams playing for the chance to go to the Cup Finals (Devils-Rangers last season, which wouldn't be possible under the NHL's proposed playoff format). 

This is the unequivocally best way to go about the realignment process. It builds on the NHL's four conference/division idea, while actually executing it in a way that makes sense and doesn't damage the integrity of the game. There's going to be a lot of realignment news over the next couple weeks, because it seems they're really pushing it now. Expect whatever the league settles on to go into effect for the 13-14 season, because I can't imagine the Jets playing in the Southeast division for another season. It seems a bit complicated at first, and there's a lot of consideration to be put into realigning a national sports league, but I believe this is the most efficient way to go about it. 

Or, maybe they'll just keep 6 divisions and move Detroit to the Eastern Conference.

Who says realignment is complicated?

Photo credits: blogs.edmontonjournal.com, tomfulery.com, bleacherreport.com