What if: Chicago Blackhawks and/or Nashville Predators moving to the Eastern Conference

[PattyLafontaine]

Remember when Toronto and Detroit were in the West?

 

[cowboy82nd]

Only reason Nashville is in the East is because Detroit whined long enough to finally get their way, which is ass backwards because theyre closer to Western teams than Nashville is

Nashville is in the West.

 

[Brock Radunske]

Remember when the Wings were going to run roughshod over the East when they moved over?

Nothing changes for the Hawks but Nashville would be up with Tampa most likely.

 

[LeafsNation75]

I understand Buffalo's division with

Boston
Detroit
Buffalo
Toronto
Ottawa and Montreal

but why did Tampa and Florida find their way there?

the NHL should have put Columbus and Pittsburgh with us over Tampa and Florida

Boston
Detroit
Buffalo
Toronto
Ottawa
Montreal
Pittsburgh
Columbus

------

Rangers
Islanders
Flyers
Devils
Capitals
Carolina
Tampa
Florida

I have always assumed the Lightning and Panthers are in the Atlantic because they know the Leafs fans as an example will always be at their games when Toronto plays them on the road. So that can happen at least 2x a year when the Leafs play in Tampa and Sunrise. This coming December I'm going to the Leafs and Lightning game in Tampa Bay since I will be on vacation in Orlando at that time, so it's only an hour drive between both cities.

 

[Hischier and Hughes]

Nashville is in the West.

meant to say isnt*

the fact that time zones are brought up in discussions show how clueless some NHL fans are about how the rest of the sports world works

 

[BruinsFan37]

Doesn't make sense to move a Central time zone team east and an Eastern Time zone west.

 

[Henkka]

If one of 16 teams in Eastern timezone moves to West, then we could consider moving Nashville to East.

 

[Mustard]

Eh. I selfishly wish we were in the EC, as it's a 1-2 hour flight to most EC cities opposed to the WC. I'd love to make the cheap flight to Raleigh or Tampa more than once a year for a game.

 

[ChompChomp]

Just for reference op, 16 most eastern teams in the east, the 15 most western teams in the west, the makes sense the way it is right now more than any other scenario. Yes Chi and Nsh are closer to the east right now but even if you move them, then you ask, well why are Minn and Stl in the west, they are closer to eastern teams like Chi and Nsh.

Its just an issue central time zone teams will have to deal with for the time being

As someone mentioned, to even up travel league wide, there should be a realignment that moves away from geographic conferences, but rather keeping geographic divisions (As much as possible, it's not like the NFL is perfect on this either). When we have 32 teams, we can do 4 divisions per conference, 2 conferences.

Wales Conference

West Div
San Jose
LA
Anaheim
Vegas

East Div
Boston
New York Rangers
Philadelphia
Washington

South Div
Nashville
Tampa Bay
Florida
Carolina

North Div
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Chicago
Detroit


Campbell Conference

West Div
Seattle
Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary

East Div
New York Islanders
New Jersey Devils
Pittsburgh
CBJ

South Div
Arizona
Colorado
Dallas
St. Louis (if the Colts can play in the AFC South, the Blues can play in a South division)

North Div
Montreal
Toronto
Buffalo
Ottawa

Division winners are seeded 1-4, 4 wild cards

Why can't this model work? Not the exact alignment I'm showing, but the concept?

 

[Jesus Take the Wheel]

As someone mentioned, to even up travel league wide, there should be a realignment that moves away from geographic conferences, but rather keeping geographic divisions (As much as possible, it's not like the NFL is perfect on this either). When we have 32 teams, we can do 4 divisions per conference, 2 conferences.

Wales Conference

West Div
San Jose
LA
Anaheim
Vegas

East Div
Boston
New York Rangers
Philadelphia
Washington

South Div
Nashville
Tampa Bay
Florida
Carolina

North Div
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Chicago
Detroit


Campbell Conference

West Div
Seattle
Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary

East Div
New York Islanders
New Jersey Devils
Pittsburgh
CBJ

South Div
Arizona
Colorado
Dallas
St. Louis (if the Colts can play in the AFC South, the Blues can play in a South division)

North Div
Montreal
Toronto
Buffalo
Ottawa

Division winners are seeded 1-4, 4 wild cards

Why can't this model work? Not the exact alignment I'm showing, but the concept?

Personally I don't agree with comparing NFL to NHL because the NFL has on average a week in between games. You could arrange the nfl divisions in any way possible and the travel would still have a much less impact than the nhl

 

[boredmale]

As someone mentioned, to even up travel league wide, there should be a realignment that moves away from geographic conferences, but rather keeping geographic divisions (As much as possible, it's not like the NFL is perfect on this either). When we have 32 teams, we can do 4 divisions per conference, 2 conferences.

Wales Conference

West Div
San Jose
LA
Anaheim
Vegas

East Div
Boston
New York Rangers
Philadelphia
Washington

South Div
Nashville
Tampa Bay
Florida
Carolina

North Div
Winnipeg
Minnesota
Chicago
Detroit


Campbell Conference

West Div
Seattle
Vancouver
Edmonton
Calgary

East Div
New York Islanders
New Jersey Devils
Pittsburgh
CBJ

South Div
Arizona
Colorado
Dallas
St. Louis (if the Colts can play in the AFC South, the Blues can play in a South division)

North Div
Montreal
Toronto
Buffalo
Ottawa

Division winners are seeded 1-4, 4 wild cards

Why can't this model work? Not the exact alignment I'm showing, but the concept?

So play team in your division 8 times = 24 games
Every Other team X 2 = 56 Games

Plus 2 "special" games every season for a grand total of 82(or even better cut the season down by 2 games)

For the playoffs top 2 teams in each division face off, then you seat the 8 teams remaining 1 to 8(1 vs 8, 2 vs 7, etc). When doing this you only count the last home and away game a team plays against divisional opponent(that way a team in a weak division has no advantage since every team will be ranked on the same group of 62 games)

 

[The Red Line]

Why would Detroit or Columbus move to the WC and Chicago to the EC. Have you looked at a map ever?