Of course East would need more wins to have a higher percentage, you have 8 more chances to get a win. I see no problem, the AHL is a developmental league. The focus is on practice time (that's hard to get in the west if they played the same number of games) and game situations.
Can we stop with the "practice time" stuff? It's a crock. They'll barely get an extra week out of this, if that. With the exception of Stockton, every road game San Jose plays will involve an overnight trip. Only Ontario has two teams under 235 miles away, so there'll be plenty of time on buses (or planes) for these guys. In Worcester, they had over a half-dozen teams inside 2 1/2 hours, meaning they'd be home a good deal more time. Manchester wasn't that worse off, and Adirondack only was because they either chose, or were saddled with, a Western Conference schedule. (Norfolk & OKC were outposts - I'll concede those, but they could've chosen closer cities to cut travel & increase practice time if that were the true issue).
They simply want their prospects closer and to save cap money, and that's cool - it's not like the California teams will exist in anyone else's minds till May anyway with everyone's schedule being "nearby-heavy".
