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Leagues realignment plan now official. Begins next season.


DevilMinder

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How on earth does this make sense for the Florida teams?

 

It makes the most sense for them.  They get to be in a division with teams like Toronto and Montreal whose fans will plan vacations around these games, thereby boosting attendance.

That's the only way it makes sense for them. It makes no sense from a geographical or travel standpoint.
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I wish they would stick with what they have (switch Columbus and Winnipeg) but I know a lot of teams like Detriot, Nashville and Columbus are desperate to play more games in their own timezone, or at least within 1 time zone.  With that in mind and assuming Quebec is coming back or they plan to have Toronto2, they need to leave an opening in Conference 2.  Switch Detroit back to conference 3 since I'm pretty sure Chicago, St. Louis, Nashville & Colorado all count the Wings as their biggest rival.   

 

Columbus in the same conference as Pittsburgh makes sense.  They've sucked so bad their entire existance that I'm not sure they've ever developed a real rival in their current division.  The Penguin fans apparently invade their arena every time they play, so as John Davidson gets things moving in the right direction, that has a chance to get pretty nasty, Browns vs Stellers style.

 

I'm not too worried about the Florida teams being grouped with the Eastern Canadian teams.  The travel isn't any worse than what the teams in the West and Central have to deal with.  If you try to make a 7-8 southeastern conference, it causes problems with the other 3. 

 

What I really don't like is the revised playoff setup.  1st round matchups against the same 2-3 teams every year gets boring and the idea that the Devils could never play the Rangers or Flyers in whatever they consider the 3rd round again would suck.  The two conference finals each against the Rangers and Flyers were some of the most epic series we've ever had.  First round wins and losses against those teams don't hold the same weight or emotion. I certainly didn't feel like we squashed the demons of '94 when we swept the Rangers in '06.   It wasn't until "Henrique! It's Over" that I really felt Ranger fans had absolutely nothing to say to me ever again.    

Edited by Lateralous
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That's the only way it makes sense for them. It makes no sense from a geographical or travel standpoint.

 

I'm sure complaints have been raised about the awfulness of the Southeast Division, and those complaints are all true - the Southeast Division has never produced 3 playoff teams in a given year.  What's most remarkable about this is that Southeast teams get to play each other, and the teams are generally bad, meaning that they can't even get to the top of the heap against one another.  So if you're splitting that division into the existing two, you don't have any way that it makes sense geographically or travel-wise unless you want to totally reorder all the divisions and break up some of NYR/NYI/NJD/PHI - which makes no sense.

 

I'm curious how often divisional teams meet in the conference finals since they went to 3 divisions.

EDIT:  8 out of 26 Conference Finals have involved teams in the same division.  It's only happened twice out West (again, the sh!ttiness of the Southeast rears its head).

Edited by Triumph
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what i dont like about that realignment is that you may see a way better 5th team out of the playoffs while there's possibly a sh!tty 3rd and 4th in a weaker division, having a spot.

 

looking at the 2nd conference in the east it seems like Boston is the only really solid team and Detroit maybe so they could have a pretty easy free pass to the playoffs and a few sh!tty team could make it compared to our conference who has Devils, Rangers, Philly, Pittsburgh who are always serious contenders then Carolina, Washington, Islanders, Columbus who all have good prospect pools who could get a lot better in a few years or bump one of the top 4 teams.

 

why fix what isnt broken you bunch of morons

Edited by SterioDesign
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Also:  if they are already unbalancing the divisions now, why wouldn't they just add a Quebec and Toronto team on top of what we've already got, and slide one of Florida or Tampa Bay (probably Tampa Bay) into this division?  They'd come up with some sort of wildcard to make it more equitable, I suppose, but really only the NHL has this issue of wanting to preserve rivalries and having a travel schedule where teams can be in 3 different cities in 4 nights.

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I know Tampa has sold out nearly every home game this year, definitely top-10 in terms of home attendance, and I'm pretty sure the Panthers aren't doing too badly themselves. So I'm really not buying into this second eastern division being beneficial for these teams because visiting teams will help with attendance.

It makes zero sense regarding traveling costs, and it almost hints that those teams may be moved north at some point (which I don't think should, or will, happen).

I hope these aren't the final plans.

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All they need to do is move Winnipeg to the Central and Detroit to the Northeast. Then change the playoff format to have the division champions be guranteed a playoff spot but they will be seeded 1-8 based on points so teams that don't deserve home ice won't get it anymore.

 

Columbus doesn't want to be in the Central.  I am not sure how they resolve the playoffs issue, but presumably since they're unbalancing the schedules much more severely than they were under the old plan that they just hope it works itself out on its own.  They also clearly want the divisional playoff format back - this way 100% of the first two rounds are ostensibly rivalry series.

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Columbus doesn't want to be in the Central.  I am not sure how they resolve the playoffs issue, but presumably since they're unbalancing the schedules much more severely than they were under the old plan that they just hope it works itself out on its own.  They also clearly want the divisional playoff format back - this way 100% of the first two rounds are ostensibly rivalry series.

 

Why should Columbus have any real say in the matter in the first place?

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Go back to the early '80's and go 1 v. 16 and let the cards fall where they fall.

 

That would be very interesting...you could get some awesome cup finals matchups (Bruins-Habs, Rangers-Devils, Flyers-Pens) though the league would have to go to a more balanced sched.

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Honestly the divisional playoff format works best when you have 16 of 21 making it

 

Under this format you will have cases where the Devils could finish 5th in the division one year while a team with less points finishes 4th in their division the same year.

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What a surprise, the revised plan sucks too. This fvcking league needs to stop trying to re-invent the wheel all the damn time. Switch Winnipeg and Columbus and be fvcking done with it. But nooooooo, it's the NHL. If it 'aint broke, fix it anyway. And make it worse. It should be the league's motto.

 

exactly right..constant changes, the trapezoid rule, re-alignment..all embarrassing...enough already

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Honestly the divisional playoff format works best when you have 16 of 21 making it

 

Under this format you will have cases where the Devils could finish 5th in the division one year while a team with less points finishes 4th in their division the same year.

 

That didn't happen in the old format?  When there were unbalanced divisions?  The Devils to make it in 1988, they had to scrape in with 85 points.  Six teams made the playoffs with fewer points that year.

 

Under the old format, in 1987, no one in the Norris finished over .500, but one was guaranteed entry to the Western Conference Finals.

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What a surprise, the revised plan sucks too. This fvcking league needs to stop trying to re-invent the wheel all the damn time. Switch Winnipeg and Columbus and be fvcking done with it. But nooooooo, it's the NHL. If it 'aint broke, fix it anyway. And make it worse. It should be the league's motto.

 

I knew I nominated this NJDevs award winner for a reason.

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fwiw, i spoke with Daly at the game today. He said that what has been reported is a little less than 1/2 right. he also told me that phx could just as easily, if not more likely, move to seattle before Canada. he also assured me that the everyone would have the same chance of making the playoffs - but didn't get into specifics obviously.

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fwiw, i spoke with Daly at the game today. He said that what has been reported is a little less than 1/2 right. he also told me that phx could just as easily, if not more likely, move to seattle before Canada. he also assured me that the everyone would have the same chance of making the playoffs - but didn't get into specifics obviously.

 

Interesting...the media wrong?  There's a shocker :P

 

Can't wait to hear the real third plan later this week when they finally put it to a vote :lol:

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What a surprise, the revised plan sucks too. This fvcking league needs to stop trying to re-invent the wheel all the damn time. Switch Winnipeg and Columbus and be fvcking done with it. But nooooooo, it's the NHL. If it 'aint broke, fix it anyway. And make it worse. It should be the league's motto.

 

I knew I nominated this NJDevs award winner for a reason.

Haha, much appreciated brother. It always comes from the heart with me.
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