Pens and Flyers stay together. Hooray!

Travis Hughes writes:

This solution answers a lot of the problems that have surrounded the realignment debate. The Dallas Stars are removed from the Pacific Division, rivalries are preserved in the East, regional hatred is amped up with the return of divisional playoff rounds, etc.

But there are a few glaring issues that remain. For starters, Detroit and Columbus are still isolated from the Eastern Time Zone, and one of the major issues has been their desire to play games against more teams in their own time zone. HNIC gave no hints as to how the schedule would break down under this format, but the home-and-home against every team in the league idea is reportedly part of the plan here.

Travel is still much easier for the two Eastern divisions in this format, but that's kind of just a fact of life in the NHL. There are more teams in closer confines in the eastern portion of the continent, and there's no changing that. Even still, travel likely gets easier for the teams on the West Coast, and as a result, this proposal seems to have the support of just about every current Western Conference team.

But no solution is perfect...