NHL Realignment?

[agharah1]

With the return of the NHL to Winnepeg its time for the NHL to realign. Between having 2 eastern time zone teams in the Western Conference and unbalanced scheduling, Detroit and Columbus were getting a really bad deal. The rumor is they want to create 4 divisions with 2 8-team and 2 7-team divisions. This is how I would set things up:

East:
Detroit
Buffalo
Columbus
Boston
Toronto
Montreal
Ottawa
NY Rangers

South:
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Washington
Carolina
Florida
Tampa
NY Islanders
New Jersey

Midwest:
Chicago
Dallas
St. Louis
Nashville
Minnesota
Winnipeg
Colorado

Pacific:
Phoenix
Los Angeles
San Jose
Anaheim
Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary

Top 4 teams in each division make the playoffs. The Pacific/Midwest gets the Campbell Bowl and plays in the Stanley Cup Final vs. the East/South winner who gets the Prince of Wales Trophy.

There's really no choice but to have 16 Eastern Conference teams and 14 Western Conference teams. There's just too many eastern time zone teams and this way none of them end up in the Western Conference. Eventually, when Phoenix leaves for Quebec City (which we all know will happen) they can be put in the East, Columbus moves to the Midwest, and Colorado moves to the Pacific.

[leafsfan19]

they are keeping with things this year, realignment will happen next year.

[csm506]

It is for the goof of the game

[csm506]

Lets go rangers can they win again

[buzzer]

Read that article, looks like Bettman proposed that to the BOG at the Jets vote. Would be very interesting

[mike-dub]

i'd love to see Toronto back in the campbell/western conference and the vancouver/toronto Rivalry renewed. but i know the realignment is due to time zones and whatnot. maybe when quebec comes back...

[the-phenomenal-1]

that works

that would be some interesting divisions

[hels]

It would be another Bettman fail I think. I don't see how this will make the game any better or the playoffs more competitive. If anything we'll see weaker teams making the playoffs and more 4-0 4-1 early round series.

[Juret]

I'd just put Jets in NW, move Avs to Pacific and Stars to Central. seems like the most fair..

[N.O.S.]

Move Detroit, Ottawa, Toronto & Columbus to Midwest, Flyers, Pittsburgh, NJ & NYI to East, Nashville, Dallas & Blues to South and we have balanced NHL.

[Metalhead]

i'd love to see Toronto back in the campbell/western conference and the vancouver/toronto Rivalry renewed. but i know the realignment is due to time zones and whatnot. maybe when quebec comes back...

Toronto and Vancouver never had a real rivalry. If Florida or Phoenix moved to Seattle, a good rivalry with Vancouver could start.

[BRAVES1985]

they gotta keep wings and hawks in the same division


should be interesting with nhl and possibly mlb finally realigning teams

[DwightShrute]

After the Winnipeg Jets ride out the 2011-12 NHL season in the Western Conference, the entire league will get a shakeup in a radical new realignment.
While the league has not determined exactly what will happen, and will spend the next several months discussing the options, word around the NHL draft on the weekend was there could be one 16-team conference with two eight-team divisions and one 14-team conference with two seven-team divisions. Or the conferences could each have an eight-team division and a seven-team division.



Under a proposal the Ottawa Sun reported was put forward by NHL commissioner Gary Bettman at last week’s board of governors meeting, the league would go to four divisions – the Pacific, Midwest, East and South. But just which team would go where is not clear at this point.The Eastern Conference will probably be the larger one, since there are three current Western Conference teams that want to move east when Winnipeg moves west from the Southeastern Division. In order to accommodate the wishes of the Detroit Red Wings, ColumbusBlueJackets and Nashville Predators, it looks like the league will move away from its current six divisions.
The Blue Jackets are pushing the proposal for a 16-team conference and a 14-team conference in hopes of moving east. They are in the Eastern time zone and do not like playing many of their road games in different time zones because their games have to be shown at late hours on television.
“We want to go in the east,” Blue Jackets general manager Scott Howson said Saturday. “We want to play more Eastern time-zone teams for obvious reasons.
“We're hopeful we can make that work. I'm in favour of anything that puts us in the east. I’m just happy we're discussing it.”

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/david-shoalts/jets-pushing-nhl-to-radical-realignment/article2076003/

[Swinging Johnson]

Bump to June of 2013 http://www.sbrforum.com/nhl-hockey/n...nment-a-31942/

[OTL]

I think that would be retarded not to have Detroit and Chicago in the same division, and I think the Canucks might not ever make the playoffs again with those teams in the Pacific.