Rank the divisions

[HolyCrap]

How is Carolina one of the two most hated teams for anyone?

I was thinking the same thing. Sure I can see the Leaf hate I get that but Carolina? Weird.

 

[Canadienna]

I just noticed that the divisions cross over west and east. So in theory we can get Toronto-Carolina in the final. Interesting.

Or Montreal - Boston

 

[Dekes For Days]

I'd probably put them..

East
North
Central
West

Though the differences have been pretty exaggerated.

 

[Pure Slaughter Value]

I was thinking the same thing. Sure I can see the Leaf hate I get that but Carolina? Weird.

Former Whaler's fan, maybe?

 

[Gaylord Q Tinkledink]

They're all kinda equal.

North/Canadian has maybe Toronto as a favourite, the rest aside from Ottawa are viewed to be competitive and Ottawa is viewed as being a bottom feeder,but I'm not entirely sure.

West has 3 really good teams and then the rest no one really expects anything out of, but one of them will make the playoffs.

Central has Tampa as the easy top. Carolina is a good team, but their goaltending is likely their downfall. Columbus is a well structured team. Some meh teams and some not so good teams.

East has Washington as a top team. Boston lost some key pieces , but seemingly every time they're ruled out, they play well.

Pens didn't play the best to Montreal, so if you look at that they're not going to do well. Philly didn't look the best in the playoffs, but both did well in the regular season.

Rangers went on a nice run to get themselves close to the playoffs. Good young players, so thet should be a good team.

Islanders with Barzal should be fine to be a decent team,if they can't sign him...

Not sure Buffalo has done enough to get a playoff spot this way.

Doubt New Jersey is any better simply because they don't get the luxury of playing the weaker teams in other divisions.

With no cross divisional play it's hard to determine which is the best.

The toughest to play in might be the North as all the teams are fairly close, but they've all loaded up on pests and/or tough players so those games could become really interesting after the 3rd, or 4th played against each other.

Or they have enough to keep the other teams at bay and nothing really happens and they're all 2-1, 3-1 games.

 

[Pavel Buchnevich]

East
West
Central
.
.
.
.
North

The North is by far the weakest division. First, mathematically it provides the easiest path to the playoffs. Secondly, it is Toronto and a batch of bad teams. Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary all had inflated records last year from playing in a weak division.

Completely agree with this.

 

[MXD]

Completely agree with this.

That pretty much means North is the strongest and East, the weakest.

 

[Lt Dan]

Not sure how anyone has the North ahead of the west? Colorado, St. Louis, and Vegas are all better than any of the Canadian teams

They are also better than the central teams other than Tampa

 

[treple13]

It really depends on what you are rating the division on.

Like the West is probably the weakest division overall, but it has some great high end teams. The North on the other hand has the most playoff quality teams (outside the East), but no real top end team.

 

[JianYang]

Does anyone know how many air miles the Canadian teams are travelling relative to their American counterparts? In the case of the canucks and jets, they don't even have a team in their own time zone.

How much does that factor in as the season and playoffs move on?

 

[HolyCrap]

Former Whaler's fan, maybe?

Im leafs fan (unfortunately) I just didn’t think there would be too many Carolina haters. I guess I’m wrong.

 

[Pure Slaughter Value]

Im leafs fan (unfortunately) I just didn’t think there would be too many Carolina haters. I guess I’m wrong.

I meant that Lobodomy (or whoever the poster is on pg1 that hates the Canes) may be a former Whalers fan. I do know a couple of friends that went to UHartford that were there when the Whalers relocated to Carolina. They were not happy (and probably hate the Canes to this day).

 

[HolyCrap]

I meant that Lobodomy (or whoever the poster is on pg1 that hates the Canes) may be a former Whalers fan. I do know a couple of friends that went to UHartford that were there when the Whalers relocated to Carolina. They were not happy (and probably hate the Canes to this day).

Oh I see what you meant. My bad. Yeah that makes sense.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

Mathematically you have to put the North at the bottom. It’s just easier to make the playoffs when you only have to beat out 3 other teams vs 4 of them.... and while the division has decent depth, it doesn’t have any team that was in the top 10 at the end of the reg season last year.

East is easily the hardest. No question.

Central and West are tricky. The west is top heavy with 3 good teams and then the rest is either bad or mediocre at best.

Central had the two SC teams and then Carolina, Columbus and Nashville who are competitive but not top tier. Florida is a wild card. Chicago could be terrible with their injuries and departed players. Detroit should be better than last year but by how much?

I’ll put it like this but maybe the North will surprise and be extra strong and make up for it only being 7 teams. The only thing that you can be sure of is that the East division is brutal.

1. East
2/3. Central/West
4. North

 

[BruinsBtn]

4 of the top 7 teams in the league last year are in the same division. Plus another team that made the conference final.

 

[Canadienna]

Mathematically you have to put the North at the bottom.

People keep saying this but as someone with a decent stats background I'm not sure what they're referring to. They may be overestimating the effect of having one less team in the division.

North: MTL, EDM, WPG, CGY, TOR, VAN battling for four spots
West: STL, VGK, COL, MIN, LA, ANA battling for four spots

I think the best team that misses the playoffs out of these two divisions will be in the North.

 

[Canadienna]

This will definitely be a common topic discussed over the course of the season by various fanbases and I don't think it's entirely off base to be upset to be honest.

This realignment has increased the disparity between divisions even without intradivisional play imo. There will always be some disparity but with the new alignment I think it's significant.

 

[MinJaBen]

Mathematically you have to put the North at the bottom. It’s just easier to make the playoffs when you only have to beat out 3 other teams vs 4 of them.... and while the division has decent depth, it doesn’t have any team that was in the top 10 at the end of the reg season last year.

East is easily the hardest. No question.

Central and West are tricky. The west is top heavy with 3 good teams and then the rest is either bad or mediocre at best.

Central had the two SC teams and then Carolina, Columbus and Nashville who are competitive but not top tier. Florida is a wild card. Chicago could be terrible with their injuries and departed players. Detroit should be better than last year but by how much?

I’ll put it like this but maybe the North will surprise and be extra strong and make up for it only being 7 teams. The only thing that you can be sure of is that the East division is brutal.

1. East
2/3. Central/West
4. North

The North should be the most competitive top to bottom, but I think also the least likely to put a team in the Cup final.

 

[Master P]

I honestly think they are all pretty even.

East is getting overrated because of past success imo.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

The North should be the most competitive top to bottom, but I think also the least likely to put a team in the Cup final.

The North has the least spread top to bottom but that’s because there’s a lot of middle in there. Pound for pound it’s the weakest division

 

[John Eichel da GOAT]

East
Central
West
North

 

[FormerLurker]

Not sure how anyone has the North ahead of the west? Colorado, St. Louis, and Vegas are all better than any of the Canadian teams

It seems that you, and many others, read the title of the thread but not the full post. OP didn't ask to rank the divisions by strength. He asked to rank in terms of toughest to make the playoffs to easiest. Parity in a division will make it tough to make the playoffs. Divisions with a few weak teams will make it easier.

My ranking:

East
North
West
Central

 

[Lawzy]

East
West
Central
.
.
.
.
North

The North is by far the weakest division. First, mathematically it provides the easiest path to the playoffs. Secondly, it is Toronto and a batch of bad teams. Edmonton, Vancouver and Calgary all had inflated records last year from playing in a weak division.

I don't disagree with your assessment but none of these teams did particularly well against the rest of the Pacific.

 

[GIN ANTONIC]

It seems that you, and many others, read the title of the thread but not the full post. OP didn't ask to rank the divisions by strength. He asked to rank in terms of toughest to make the playoffs to easiest. Parity in a division will make it tough to make the playoffs. Divisions with a few weak teams will make it easier.

My ranking:

East
North
West
Central

But it sort of depends on the team right? It all comes down to your immediate competition. There’s 4 spots per division so how many teams are you better than?

In the East a good team is going to miss. Boston, Washington, Philly, Boston, Pittsburgh were all top 10 teams last year and someone is the odd team out. I know Boston has sustained some losses in personnel but still they won the presidents trophy last year. Then you have NYI who made the ECF and NYR who is a very promising young team that added the 1OA in Laf and if Igor is the real deal in net they will be very good. NJ is the ‘weakest’ team and even they aren’t a push over.

In the West you have 3 legit cup contenders in LV, Col, and STL so if you’re putting them as a lock to make it and you’re not one of those teams there’s one spot left for 5 teams. I agree that there are some weak teams in there on paper but there’s not much room for error.

The Central is fairly balanced with a few
top teams (TB and Dallas), then some good teams who are a tier below in Carolina, Columbus and Nashville. Florida is talented but a wild card and inconsistent and the en you have Detroit and Chicago who probably won’t be great this year.

So then we get to the North. No real pushovers in the division unless you count Ottawa and even then I think theyve improved a ton with getting Murray and then some signings and trades. There is no standout top contender in this division. The Leafs are the favourites but I don’t see a huge gap between them and the other teams. So yes, this division will be competitive but it will also be the easiest for any team to win the division. So, yeah I suppose it mig to t be the most competitive to make the playoffs based on the teams in the division but that’s because none of the teams are all that good to begin with. If you took a team from outside the division and brought them into it they would probably be happy to be there.

 

[MSSLYNX]

Brings me back to the 80s when the Adams division had Quebec-Hartford so making the playoffs was easy while the Patrick division had 1 more team and every season a team in the Patrick didnt make it because of that extra team. Huge difference 7 vs 8 teams.
1988 last in Patrick would have been 2nd in Norris. Plenty of such oddities in those unbalanced divisions.