Saturday, July 02, 2011

Realignment Coming For The NHL

With the Atlanta Thrashers no more and having the Winnipeg Jets in the Southeast Division, the NHL has decided that major realignment is worth doing.  According to league sources, the commissioner and others in the league office are trying to decide how to realign the league.  Here is the one that has the most steam behind it.

1.  Have 2 conferences with 4 divisions.  15 teams in each conference.  The Divisions would break down as follows:


I don't like the split here.  I would move Detroit back to the Midwest.  I would Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Philly into the South.  And finally I would put New York Islanders, Rangers, and New Jersey in the East. 

Here are other realignment proposals. 

I am glad that the NHL will realign the teams into different divisions after this year.  It will be interesting to say the least about which team goes into which conference.

3 comments:

Robyn said...

I would love to see Boston and both New York teams in the same division. I bet a lot of old time hockey fans would, especially the Rangers.

Zebster said...

Can someone explain to me what's the supposed benefit of going to 4 divisions instead of 6? (other than keeping a weak division winner from getting a high seed...maybe that is the only reason)
Yeah RJ, Boston's (and vice versa) best and most traditional rivals in all sports are from NYC, not Buffalo

Brent said...

The reason of going to 4 divisions is the geography of getting teams close to each other in 6 divisions is tough. Especially in the South and West.

One of the good things about the 4 divisions is that they are talking that the 1st Round of the playoffs will all be intradivisional. So we could have a First Round of Boston-Montreal, Chicago-Detroit, Vancouver-Anaheim, Los Angeles-San Jose. And you know that at least that 1st Round of the playoffs would turn out some of the most passionate series that you can get.