Realignment idea for the NHL

Love this idea but I think the NHL will add two teams at once rather than just one to keep the conferences even. I do love going back to the original names and how you have laid this out.

The Patrick division would not only create the best playoff games but would be by far the most competitive and entertaining division to watch every year. A division that contains, Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Alex Ovechkin, Rick Nash, Ryan Miller, Marian Gaborik, and many other great players.

Also this system would keep already built rivalries intact but make some even more bitter, like Pittsburgh v. Washington, meeting more during the season. It will also give the Capitals a chance to prove themselves against real competition and get them out of the lackluster Southeast.

If this would ever happen it would be great for the fans and the league.

While I like parts of this idea – bringing back the old conference and division names, bringing the Caps back into the Patrick – I just don’t see it happening. Seems like sports leagues trend toward smaller divisions, perhaps to have more contested races going on to increase interest in late-season games (just a guess), yet this proposal goes to 8-team divisions? Plus, someone mentioned this creating more games between rivals like Pens-Caps, but would that be true? They already play 4 times a year, and with 7 division opponents I can’t see them playing each team more than 5 times. So yes, that’s 1 extra game against Washington, but 1 fewer for bigger rivalries like Philly and the Rangers. I guess maybe they could go 6 against division teams, 3 each against the rest of the conference, but that only leaves 1 each for non-conference match-ups, assuming my late night math is correct, and also that the league expands to 32.

I said on Gould Old Days’ post that the losers in his realignment were the Avalanche since they were so far from the rest of their division and in a completely different time zone. So I like it.

St Louis is the one thing I don’t like about the realignment. Their two biggest rivals, the Hawks and the Wings would not be in their division anymore.

When expansion occurs, and there is little evidence that the NHL could support two more teams without contraction in other markets, I think we will get re-aligned again to 4 divisions in each conference, ala the NFL. I just hope we are not the odd man out in the Atlantic, but a division of NYI, NYR, NJ and PH makes a ton of sense. Unless you split the NY teams like baseball.

AKA the one nobody cares about.

My goodness you are stacking the Patrick and Adams. The rich get richer, or just beat the hell out of each other?

You would definitely see the South teams win more games, as they would have easier schedules.

What are your thoughts on the playoff system as it stands now? It makes sense to me to keep it as is (top 8 conference teams, rather than top 4 teams in each division). Back when you guys were winning Cups in the early 1990s and the Flyers were rebuilding, it used to drive me crazy that we’d be better than Hartford every year and still miss the post-season.

My only issue with your idea would be that Inter-Conference play would continue to suffer, assuming you play the teams in your own conference more often. As many great players would be in the Patrick Division, we’d never get to see the Kopitars, Marleaus, Iginlas, and Sedins of the league in person. For example, last night the Flyers played the Predators in Nashville for the first time since December of 2005. They had a “Welcome Home” ceremony pre-game for Timonen and Hartnell. It’s ridiculous that one team’s fanbase only sees another conference’s team randomly every few years.

If you wanted to keep strong divisional rivalries alive, you’d play your divisional opponents 5 times each. That’s 35 games right there. If you wanted to have more inter-conference games, you would have to add a game to the overall schedule and have 2 games (home-and-home) against every remaining team in the entire league.

• 7 divisional opponents x 5 games each = 35 divisional games
• 3 other divisions x 8 teams each division = 24 teams
• 24 teams x 2 games each = 48 non-division games
• 35 division games + 48 non-division games = 83 games total.

So you’d have to keep the intra-conference play random as it is now (i.e., "Each team plays another AT LEAST ONCE but MAYBE TWICE) so as to have more intra-conference matches. The good thing about the current divisional structure is that the NHL could feasibly adjust it to allow inter-conference home-and-homes for all without sacrificing intra-conference play too much.