Now that the Board of Governors has approved a potential realignment plan for the NHL next season, the league is awaiting a vote by the Players Association before it can enact the plan and move forward with the fine-tuning. However, with the tentative plan in place, many questions are still being raised as to whether this is the best strategy for the NHL moving forward.
Hockey fans began speculating and proposing possible realignment strategies long before the Board of Governors met in Pebble Beach, Cali., this week. The reason why there was so much speculation was because there was no single idea that solved all of the problems concerning every team and general manager in the league.
Detroit, Columbus, Dallas and Nashville all wanted to move East. However, teams in the West didn’t want to lose a team like Detroit, who draws an incredible amount of fans when they come to town. But if Columbus was moved to the East, it would be unfair to Detroit, who would continue to endure a heavy travel schedule playing out West during the regular season and playoffs despite being in the Eastern time zone, like Columbus.
Needless to say, in terms of a compromise for the league and all of the teams involved, the new realignment strategy is the most appealing option. That doesn’t mean it is a flawless strategy, though.
Probably the biggest “WTF” with the new realignment concerns the two Florida teams. The Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers have got to be wondering why they are basically moving into the current Northeast division with Buffalo, Boston, Montreal, Toronto and Ottawa. Shouldn’t the league have placed the Florida teams into a conference that makes more sense geographically? The league could easily move the New York Islanders and New York Rangers into the Northeast division with Buffalo, Boston, et al., and put the Lightning and Panthers in with Carolina, Washington, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and New Jersey. For Tampa Bay and Florida, their placement just doesn’t make sense logistically.
Another flaw in the plan involves playoffs. With four conferences in place now, the first two rounds of the playoffs will take place within each conference. So the top four teams in each conference will make the playoffs, basically nullifying cumulative point totals league-wide. Instead, it emphasizes point totals only within each conference. The fourth place team in Conference A could make the playoffs with 90 points while the fifth place team in Conference B misses the playoffs with 100 points. To break it down simply, it doesn’t always ensure that the best teams make the playoffs every year.
However, it does place more of an emphasis on divisional play during the regular season. Things are tightening up throughout the league thanks to the parity created by the salary cap. When the realignment occurs, a team’s best chance to make the playoffs will be to steal points from a division rival who is also fighting for a divisional playoff spot. Get a clean win on your opponent and put yourself two points ahead of them. Division opponents will play each other six times throughout the season. The 12 points up for grabs during those games could be the difference between lacing up for the playoffs and lacing up for an early tee time.
On the plus side, this new playoff format should help enact deeper rivalries. With teams fighting for conference points and then having to meet each year in the playoffs, bitter rivalries could be easily created and fans will want to tune in to see matchups that may not have otherwise interested them.
The obvious plus on realignment is that every arena in the league will host every other team at least once. This allows fans the opportunity to see all of their favorite players at least once during the regular season. Now the superstars around the league will visit every arena ever year and give fans the chance to see them live, in the flesh, every season.
This also ensures more Original Six matchups. It’s always fun to see Detroit take on the Toronto Maple Leafs or Montreal Canadiens and renew old rivalries that existed in the Original Six era. This new realignment strategy helps bring back some of that history.
And the new format means there could be some interesting Stanley Cup matchups now. Boston could meet Pittsburgh, or Detroit could meet San Jose – a team that has bounced Detroit from the playoffs two years in a row. Vancouver and Chicago have garnered some bad blood thanks to playoff meetings over the past several years. Now, those two teams could meet in the Cup Finals.
Overall, despite some of the obvious flaws, this new strategy provides the most fan-friendly scenario and offers a compromise that makes everyone in the league happy.
What do you think? Are you happy with the new realignment plan? Join the discussion by leaving a comment or heading over to our Facebook page to discuss this topic with other fans!
I agree that it is mostly good change. I think that the reasoning behind Florida teams in the north east is simple. Those teams had the worst travel schedule in the east from the start so keeping in the same time zone was an improvement. They also anticipate increased revenue from retired “snow birds” in the area. The real issue was getting the New York, New Jersey, Phili teams to not block the move. They wanted to keep their regional rivalries and to ensure that they wouldn’t block the move they made it an advantage to them. I also heard that border crossing can be a pain for teams and by them avoiding that it made them happy as well.
As far as a team making the playoffs in one conference vs another due to the point totals that happens already each year with some West teams point totals are not enough to qualify for the west playoffs but would be in if they were in the East. The beauty of this new scheduling is that the teams in the conference play the same schedule. Gone is the thought process that the best teams in one division make the playoffs because they were beating up on their own weak division teams. Example being Chicago playing Columbus and St Louis last year when they were “easy wins” and getting into the playoffs last year vs Dallas who missed out but had to play many games in a division where Every team was playoff bound. There is no denying that every conference will have a bottom team or two but by balancing the schedule inside these new conferences as is the approved plan each team as the same fighting chance of making the playoffs.
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