NHL maps out major changes (Realignment to 4 divisions?)

[RandR]

meh, this is standard NHL. Heard the same before

Source comes out and says "Deal is not done for Jets" - deal was, for all intents and purposes done.

Source comes out and says Bond sale is dead for glenndale - NHL - Bond sale not done, we've sold half. Bond sale was actually done

To be honest, I believe sources like liepold and steve brunt more than the official NHL statements now. Burnside seems to be a mouthpiece for the NHL.

Agreed. The original report is from a blog and the other is just repeating it. And the response from the league source is just for PR consumption to hopefully prevent anybody from getting too up in arms.

So why would the League not want people to think that a re-alignment structure is already fairly firmly decided upon?

A very simple reason... because not everybody is 100% happy with it. For example, Leipold suggested that Columbus may stay in a Central Division and there is evidence that Columbus is hoping to move to the East conference.

When negotiations take place in business or politics and some details leak out it is typical for pronouncements to be made to remind everyone that "nothing is set in stone yet". What else would we expect the league to say, especially when the vote itself doesn't actually take place until December?

The NHL was also consistent to remind everyone that the Thrashers move to Winnipeg was pending BoG approval when most people knew that it was a fait accompli long before the vote itself actually took place.

 

[knorthern knight]

I don't think same teams would be always against each other every year, because the divisional playoffs are only for first round, not winning the whole division.

Bad idea. I think the first two rounds should be divisional, i.e. winner of 1-versus-4 against winner of 2-versus-3. This would GUARANTEE that the first 2 rounds would feature...

• 3 matchups in combined Pacific+Mountain time zones
• 3 matchups in Central time zone
• 6 matchups in Eastern time zone

Even round 3 would be half-decent, if the winner of the West played the winner of the Central, and the winner of the Great Lakes division played the winner of the Atlantic division.

 

[Mighty Joe Moon]

What's the difference? A Division winner that gets a 3rd place Playoff seed with a 6th place Conference record, or a Division winner with a 2nd place Playoff seed and a 4th place Conference record? Or worse yet, a guaranteed top-4 Playoff spot, with a record worse than the 6th place in the other Division, which doesn't get a Playoff spot.

I'm not sure I follow this. At least how it matters anyway. It just seems to me that if the league is going to bother having a divisional alignment, teams should win their way out of it. Maybe it's an 80s bias. But if a team can win a 7 or 8 team division with a schedule heavy on divisional rivals, they wouldn't necessarily be compared against the other division's records. Seeding becomes less important, because you only seed once. 1-4, 2-3 each division. Winners play each other to win out of the division, then out of the conference, then the finals. I think this format also helps create and keep rivalries. If you can cost another team their season a couple of years in a row, there's grounds for some quality hate. Remember Detroit-Colorado in the 90s? Not so hot the last 5 plus years. The 1-8 seeding, while undeniably logical, isn't necessarily kind to rivalries come playoffs.

The 6 divisions allow for nice symmetry and an easily generated schedule, but other than travel costs (which most fans don't care about) there isn't much point that I can see. And being from Winnipeg, I can say for sure that the Jets are pretty much hooped for travel costs anyway. Vancouver and Dallas are pretty much the same distance away from us. The old Jets preferred the Norris division because St. Louis, Minnesota, Chicago and Detroit (and yes Toronto too) was MUCH easier on travel than the old LA, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary. If I recall correctly, the Rockies/Devils had to pay part of their relocation fees to the old Jets to offset travel costs switching from the Norris to the Smythe. For what it's worth, I don't mind being in the Southeast division. Our rivalries with the other Canadian teams will always be there.

Anyway back to point, if playoff seeding is MOST important, and hey, why not? Then why not just ditch the division/conference alignment and go to full league standings? Each team can play each other 3 times for an 87 game schedule, and seed the playoffs 1-16. I can concede two divisions of 15 teams. Each plays their own division 4 times, then the other division twice, (86 games) seed 1-8 and win out from there. If Leipold is correct about realignment, I would hope they stick with 1-4, 1-4 divisional playoffs rather than the 1-8 format. Personally, I hope he's right.

I really just don't see the point of creating division-heavy schedules to offset travel, create rivalries, or whatever reason you have, and then throwing the division concept out the window come playoffs.

 

[Henkka]

Bad idea. I think the first two rounds should be divisional, i.e. winner of 1-versus-4 against winner of 2-versus-3. This would GUARANTEE that the first 2 rounds would feature...

• 3 matchups in combined Pacific+Mountain time zones
• 3 matchups in Central time zone
• 6 matchups in Eastern time zone

Even round 3 would be half-decent, if the winner of the West played the winner of the Central, and the winner of the Great Lakes division played the winner of the Atlantic division.

Division winner could be possible. But absolutely no for the 3rd round from same direction. The travel is basicly same for both (of course there's home-ice advantage, but that's earned by better points total) and it's only for 4 teams. Also the schdule is easier at playoffs, not rushed like at regular season. No problem at all.

And, what I noticed also, with those amount of games there won't be east and west. The conferences disappear. It's only division that matters and then all the 16 EST teams could be at two 8 team divisions, when there's no conferences and conference playoffs. Without conferences and with equal amount of games against "the rest", it doen't matter where the 7 and 8 team divisions geographically are.

And then we can fix the timezone problems perfectly for everybody.

 

[Grudy0]

So why would the League not want people to think that a re-alignment structure is already fairly firmly decided upon?

A very simple reason... because not everybody is 100% happy with it. For example, Leipold suggested that Columbus may stay in a Central Division and there is evidence that Columbus is hoping to move to the East conference.

Not only that, nothing is "finalized"...

An NHL source told ESPN.com on Wednesday it was premature to suggest any decisions have been made on how the NHL will look a year from now.

It's double-speak.

The BoG hasn't voted to finalize anything, yet, but it appears that the move to a four-division alignment will happen. There's still the question regarding the composition of each division.

When negotiations take place in business or politics and some details leak out it is typical for pronouncements to be made to remind everyone that "nothing is set in stone yet". What else would we expect the league to say, especially when the vote itself doesn't actually take place until December?

The NHL was also consistent to remind everyone that the Thrashers move to Winnipeg was pending BoG approval when most people knew that it was a fait accompli long before the vote itself actually took place.

Exactly.

Heck, even Leipold didn't guarantee exactly what the Central Division would look like, but he did list most of the teams as a guarantee, with "possibly Columbus".

 

[Hawkscap]

Anyone else notice the latest NHL Faceoff Panel survey was geared towards realignment? Asking about rivalries and your next favorite team?

 

[MoreOrr]

Anyone else notice the latest NHL Faceoff Panel survey was geared towards realignment? Asking about rivalries and your next favorite team?

And what did they have to say?

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

The 1-8 seeding, while undeniably logical, isn't necessarily kind to rivalries come playoffs.

Completely agree - to illustrate your point (according to my hallucination of math), the first round matchups can be arranged 274 different ways when choosing the top 8 teams from a group of 15, but can only be arranged 31 ways when choosing the top 4 teams from a group of 7, and 43 ways when choosing the top 4 teams from a group of 8. And that's assuming that every team has equal odds of finishing in any spot - when you faactor in your perennial winners and losers, the number of prospective matchups drops even more.

I welcome anybody with a background in stats to check my math, since I'm really only pretending to know what I'm doing.

 

[Hawkscap]

They listed a whole bunch of rivalries eg: Chic/Det, Det/Tor, Pit/Phil, Bos/Mon, Bos/Philly, Det/Color, Tor/Ott, NYR/NYI, NYR/Phil, Mon/Tor

You needed to choose which one was most important to you and then which ones you would like to watch.

It then asked you rank times on the weekends that you prefer to watch hockey.

You also had to go through all 30 teams and choose the probability of watching a game with them not playing your favorite team.

 

[Crayton]

Completely agree - to illustrate your point (according to my hallucination of math), the first round matchups can be arranged 274 different ways when choosing the top 8 teams from a group of 15, but can only be arranged 31 ways when choosing the top 4 teams from a group of 7, and 43 ways when choosing the top 4 teams from a group of 8. And that's assuming that every team has equal odds of finishing in any spot - when you faactor in your perennial winners and losers, the number of prospective matchups drops even more.

I welcome anybody with a background in stats to check my math, since I'm really only pretending to know what I'm doing.

If you want unique matchups with teams in unique positions (1 BOS vs. 8 MTL is different than 1 MTL vs. 8 BOS), you have 71,280,000 unique combinations for an entire conference slate; square that (5.08 x 10^16) to get the the total possible first-round matchup combos for the league.

Of course, if we are talking about single matchups regardless of seed, there are 105 unique matchups per conference. That number dips to 28 and 21 in 8 or 7 team conferences.

But the true number of importance is the simplest. A team like Boston has a 1 in 14 chance of being paired with Montreal in conference playoffs. Their chance doubles, 1 in 7, if they are in a division of 8.

 

[MoreOrr]

Why would it have to be 1-8 Conference matchups? Don't some of you ever think outside the box? You could have an approximated Divisional Playoff, with the the Top-8 teams in the Conference making the Playoffs, but in the 1st Round, Divisional matchups are done where possible. What's the problem with that?

And for the guy, whoever it was the other day, complaining about Division winners in a 6-Division structure getting the Top-3 seeds.... Well hell, that can be modified too, if the League really cared to do so. One thing possible is that Division winners not be guaranteed more than Home-ice advantage, not necessarily Top-3 but Top-4. And really, if they wanted to take it further, regardless of how many Divisions there are, they could have the 2nd Round or Conference Final based strictly on Conference record, disregarding Division winners at that stage.

Try to be creative guys. You box yourself inside a certain format and then have to live with the good and bad of it, but if you're creative then you can modify it to have it as you want it.

 

[Boston Bruno]

Play each team in the league twice - one home, 1 road

Every team makes the playoffs - first plays worst- 7 Games Series - Double elimination (you must lose 2 series to be out)

(Minimum games played by each team 8)

Start in Pool A - lose move to Pool B - lose in Pool B - OUT.

Done.

No divisions, no conferences, no time zone whining.

 

[LadyStanley]

Anyone else notice the latest NHL Faceoff Panel survey was geared towards realignment? Asking about rivalries and your next favorite team?

I think it may have been more geared to national games on this season's schedule, with perhaps some carry over into the realignment discussion.

Excluding a few playoff rivals, told 'em I DON'T CARE which two teams are playing as long as it's good hockey. (Including telling them I could care less about Ovi and Sid, and I didn't watch the Winter Classic.)

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

Why would it have to be 1-8 Conference matchups? Don't some of you ever think outside the box? You could have an approximated Divisional Playoff, with the the Top-8 teams in the Conference making the Playoffs, but in the 1st Round, Divisional matchups are done where possible. What's the problem with that?

Using the teams from this past year's playoffs as an example, can you illustrate what you have in mind here? How do you simultaneously pair teams for playoff matches based on divisional rivals and ranking? You can't have both; one comes at the expense of the other.

 

[Crayton]

Using the teams from this past year's playoffs as an example, can you illustrate what you have in mind here? How do you simultaneously pair teams for playoff matches based on divisional rivals and ranking? You can't have both; one comes at the expense of the other.

Something like:
1 Washington vs. 5 Tampa Bay (if too unfair, rotate with Montreal and Buffalo)
2 Philadelphia vs. 8 NY Rangers
3 Boston vs. 7 Buffalo
4 Pittsburgh vs. 6 Montreal

1 Vancouver vs. 8 Chicago
2 San Jose vs. 7 Los Angeles
3 Detroit vs. 5 Nashville
4 Anaheim vs. 6 Phoenix

 

[MoreOrr]

Using the teams from this past year's playoffs as an example, can you illustrate what you have in mind here? How do you simultaneously pair teams for playoff matches based on divisional rivals and ranking? You can't have both; one comes at the expense of the other.

Eastern Conference
Washington
Philadelphia
Boston
Pittsburgh
Tampa Bay
Montreal
Buffalo
NY Rangers

Washington vs Tampa Bay
Philadelphia vs Rangers
Boston vs Buffalo
Pittsburgh vs Montreal (the only non-Divisional matchup)

* If they forced all Divisional matchups, as some of you appear to want, it would've meant something like Montreal vs 10th place Toronto (people would love that, but at the cost of skipping over 8th place Rangers and 9th place Carolina).
Also sacrificing the actual matchup that was Boston vs Montreal. Even in a strict Top-4 1st Round Divisional Playoff, with 8 teams in a Division, rarely is it going to be the matchups that people most want.

Western Conference
Vancouver
San Jose
Detroit
Anaheim
Nashville
Phoenix
Los Angeles
Chicago

Vancouver vs Chicago (the only non-Divisional matchup)
San Jose vs Los Angeles
Detroit vs Nashville
Anaheim vs Phoenix

* And again here, for a more strict Divisional Playoff, it would've meant the exact same scenario, skipping over 8th place Chicago and 9th place Dallas in order for the Canucks to play 10th place Calgary.


Approximated seems fine to me, for the 1st Round. And then in the 2nd Round go with the straight Conference records for the remaining matchups.

 

[MoreOrr]

Something like:
1 Washington vs. 5 Tampa Bay (if too unfair, rotate with Montreal and Buffalo)
2 Philadelphia vs. 8 NY Rangers
3 Boston vs. 7 Buffalo
4 Pittsburgh vs. 6 Montreal

1 Vancouver vs. 8 Chicago
2 San Jose vs. 7 Los Angeles
3 Detroit vs. 5 Nashville
4 Anaheim vs. 6 Phoenix

That's what people seem to want.

And a strict Divisional Playoff is almost the Only thing that is gained by a 4-Division structure that can't be done with 6-Divisions.

 

[Crayton]

That's what people seem to want.

Interestingly, breaking up the WAS-TB series results in reduced travel for the teams involved.

Definitely don't go so far as to dig up teams in 10th place. Chicago's spot in the playoffs should not be determined by how well St. Louis matches up against Calgary 10 points away.

Pseudo-divisional matchups seems like an easy switch from the current setup. Having Philadelphia play the Rangers rather than the Sabres seems like a win anyway you look at it.

And, as a small change, I would expect limits to prevent, for example, the top two teams in the conference from meeting in the first round if they just so happen to be the only playoff teams from their division.

 

[KingsFan7824]

Phi, NYR, NYI, NJ, Was, Pit
Bos, Mtl, Ott, Tor, Buf, Det
Clb, Car, TB, Fla

That looks about right. Everyone east in the east. The old Patrick division is back. The northern teams look ready to go. The southern teams and Columbus in the nobody cares about playing them in particular division, but that division gets two automatic playoff spots, no matter what the records are. That leaves 3 each for the other two divisions...so, big time rivalries...I want to see some nasty!

Chi, Stl, Nas, Min, Dal
Van, Edm, Cal, Wpg
SJ, LA, Ana, Phx, Col

Colorado can move with the Canadian teams if that's what the Avs would rather do. Sort of like the southern teams in the east, nobody really wants to have go all the way out west to play. Central teams are together though. The Canadian teams are together. It's a little easier to make the playoff in the west, but that's the price to pay.

 

[MoreOrr]

Phi, NYR, NYI, NJ, Was, Pit
Bos, Mtl, Ott, Tor, Buf, Det
Clb, Car, TB, Fla

That looks about right. Everyone east in the east. The old Patrick division is back. The northern teams look ready to go. The southern teams and Columbus in the nobody cares about playing them in particular division, but that division gets two automatic playoff spots, no matter what the records are. That leaves 3 each for the other two divisions...so, big time rivalries...I want to see some nasty!

Chi, Stl, Nas, Min, Dal
Van, Edm, Cal, Wpg
SJ, LA, Ana, Phx, Col

Colorado can move with the Canadian teams if that's what the Avs would rather do. Sort of like the southern teams in the east, nobody really wants to have go all the way out west to play. Central teams are together though. The Canadian teams are together. It's a little easier to make the playoff in the west, but that's the price to pay.

Nothing like hanging Columbus, Carolina, Tampa, and Florida out to dry. That right there shows the problem that exists... Nobody wants to be in a Division with those teams. Even you change one team in the current Divisions to fit just one of those teams in, .... No way in hell, is the outcry!

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

Eastern Conference
Washington
Philadelphia
Boston
Pittsburgh
Tampa Bay
Montreal
Buffalo
NY Rangers

1 vs 5
2 vs 8
3 vs 7
4 vs 6

Why is Philadelphia getting an "easier" opponent than Washington, despite finishing with a better record? Why does Tampa, a number 5 seed get punished by playing the number one seed in the first round (ignoring for the moment that Tampa stomped Washington flat in four straight )?

Just taking the top eight teams and assigning them a first round-dance partner based on divisions makes the standings completely pointless. Why try to aim higher than eighth place?

 

[MoreOrr]

1 vs 5
2 vs 8
3 vs 7
4 vs 6

Why is Philadelphia getting an "easier" opponent than Washington, despite finishing with a better record? Why does Tampa, a number 5 seed get punished by playing the number one seed in the first round (ignoring for the moment that Tampa stomped Washington flat in four straight )?

Just taking the top eight teams and assigning them a first round-dance partner based on divisions makes the standings completely pointless. Why try to aim higher than eighth place?

So, you have 2 Divisions, one of 7 teams and one of 8 teams.
In the one Division you have the Top-4 teams ranked 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 9th in the Conference.
In the other Division you have the Top-4 teams ranked 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th in the Conference.

How is that going to be any different from what your complaining about above?

 

[KingsFan7824]

Nothing like hanging Columbus, Carolina, Tampa, and Florida out to dry. That right there shows the problem that exists... Nobody wants to be in a Division with those teams. Even you change one team in the current Divisions to fit just one of those teams in, .... No way in hell, is the outcry!

That's why I rewarded them with the two playoff spots no matter what. Don't want to be in a division with those teams? That's fine. Want to keep those long time rivals together? No problem. It'll just be tougher for you to make the playoffs then. Everyone gets more of what they want, but nothing comes for free.

The Coyotes move to Quebec? It would be that much tougher. I wouldn't move anyone out of the eastern conference.

The northeast part of the NHL world is the main part, I get that. Everything is close together, they have all the long standings rivalries, etc. I'm willing to let them be in the same few divisions. Those teams will just have to give to get. What's the most important thing? Playoff spots.

 

[Buck Aki Berg]

So, you have 2 Divisions, one of 7 teams and one of 8 teams.
In the one Division you have the Top-4 teams ranked 1st, 2nd, 6th, and 9th in the Conference.
In the other Division you have the Top-4 teams ranked 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 7th in the Conference.

How is that going to be any different from what your complaining about above?

Because divisional playoffs and conference playoffs both follow some sort of logic - the top seed plays the lowest seed. Teams are being paired off willy-nilly based on what division they're in, standings be damned, with any mismatches getting paired off because they have nobody else to play.

Such a system of determining playoff pairings would have the same logic as determining them based on the skate size of each team's starting goaltender.

...and your scenario above implies that your 3rd-ranked team, for example) would still be ranked third if they were in the opposite division, despite having an entirely different schedule.

 

[MoreOrr]

That's why I rewarded them with the two playoff spots no matter what. Don't want to be in a division with those teams? That's fine. Want to keep those long time rivals together? No problem. It'll just be tougher for you to make the playoffs then. Everyone gets more of what they want, but nothing comes for free.

The Coyotes move to Quebec? It would be that much tougher. I wouldn't move anyone out of the eastern conference.

The northeast part of the NHL world is the main part, I get that. Everything is close together, they have all the long standings rivalries, etc. I'm willing to let them be in the same few divisions. Those teams will just have to give to get. What's the most important thing? Playoff spots.

But my "hanging out to dry" comment was meant to say that such a Division would have very little fan-appeal to the teams in it.