142 replies to this topic

[NewarkDevil5]

It would be good for Western Conference travel and rivalry if there were teams in both Seattle and Portland and Phoenix moved to Kansas City or Houston.

Pacific Division:

Vancouver
Seattle
Portland
Los Angeles
Anaheim
San Jose
Calgary
Edmonton

Central Division:

Winnipeg
Minnesota
Chicago
St Louis
Dallas
Nashville
Colorado
Kansas City or Houston

[Marshall]

This sets the table for expansion in the west...except it doesn't make sense. Unless you move Toronto and Quebec to the west.

[squishyx]

You mean like the Devils' 1988 Patrick Division Champions banner?
 
To be honest, I've always thought that banner was kind of dumb (if understandable; at that point in their history it was the first taste of success the franchise had).  Winning the regular season division championship is a greater accomplishment because you did it over 80-84 games, not two 7-game series.  Besides, if the Devils are going to have that 1988 banner, why not have a banner for their 1994 playoff run when they went equally as far in the playoffs, lost in arguably the greatest NHL playoff series of all-time to the Presidents' Trophy winner that season, and themselves were second in the NHL in regular season points?

I don't tether much weight to divisional banners anyway but at least in '88 the Devils were part of the Patrick division. Under this new setup you could win it for a division you don't play in, unless they either don't hand the banners out, or stick with the regular season totals either of those would be fine with me.

[Chuck the Duck]

Yeah, they won't expand to Quebec, not after this- a team would have to move there if it were to happen. By the looks of this whole thing, it tells me Phoenix is going to Seattle next season. I don't think there's any way that team can stay in Glendale another season.

 

You're giving the NHL (and Bettman) way too much credit.  Your analysis is far to rational for this league.  My money is on the team staying in Phoenix for the next decade with potential buyers coming and going like johns at a brothel in Amsterdam. 

[MadDog2020]

Yeah, they won't expand to Quebec, not after this- a team would have to move there if it were to happen. By the looks of this whole thing, it tells me Phoenix is going to Seattle next season. I don't think there's any way that team can stay in Glendale another season.
 
You're giving the NHL (and Bettman) way too much credit.  Your analysis is far to rational for this league.  My money is on the team staying in Phoenix for the next decade with potential buyers coming and going like johns at a brothel in Amsterdam. 

Excellent point Chuck, this is Bettman's NHL. I should know better lol.

[CHIP72]

I don't tether much weight to divisional banners anyway but at least in '88 the Devils were part of the Patrick division. Under this new setup you could win it for a division you don't play in, unless they either don't hand the banners out, or stick with the regular season totals either of those would be fine with me.

 

I agree 100%.

[DevilMinder]

The board of governors rubber stamped the plans. That was the last roadblock to the realignment.

[NewarkDevil5]

If they swapped the Blue Jackets and Penguins out for the Lightning and Panthers this would make better sense. I just don't see the snowbird thing carrying the Florida teams. The teams west of the Appalachians should be grouped together to foster a rivalry.

[Triumph]

If they swapped the Blue Jackets and Penguins out for the Lightning and Panthers this would make better sense. I just don't see the snowbird thing carrying the Florida teams. The teams west of the Appalachians should be grouped together to foster a rivalry.

 

As I mentioned, probably earlier in this thread, two Southeast Division teams have met once in the playoffs, in 2003.  There's no rivalry to speak of between Carolina and the Florida teams (both have made trades with one another in recent memory, for instance).  Geography doesn't apply here either.

[Matteau#32]

Only the NHL would be dumb enough to come up with a schedule matrix that is mathematically impossible to create.

 

Western conference.  Can't have 7 teams playing 1 team only 4 times.  Look at the Pacific.  

 

Let's say Anaheim and Calgary 4 times and they each play everyone else 5  Fine.

Now, Edmonton and LA play 4 times and everyone else 5.  OK

Same for Phoenix and San Jose.

Who is Vancouver going to play 4 times?

[Matteau#32]

I don't tether much weight to divisional banners anyway but at least in '88 the Devils were part of the Patrick division. Under this new setup you could win it for a division you don't play in, unless they either don't hand the banners out, or stick with the regular season totals either of those would be fine with me.

Originally, I loved the idea of bringing back 4 divisions and bringing back divisional play-offs.  This cross-over thing is just dumb.  I am HOPING it only applies when it is 5 from one division and 3 from the other.  If each division has one wild-card, hopefully they just go 1-4, 2-3.  It would be dumb to have the Penguins play the Sabres in the first round and the Bruins play the Flyers.  

[NewarkDevil5]

As I mentioned, probably earlier in this thread, two Southeast Division teams have met once in the playoffs, in 2003.  There's no rivalry to speak of between Carolina and the Florida teams (both have made trades with one another in recent memory, for instance).  Geography doesn't apply here either.

 

I don't care if there is a playoff rivalry amongst any of them. Most of them have been lousy teams for a majority of the time the Southeast Division has existed. With lousy teams your rivalries are the teams you meet often in the regular season. In all actuality it doesn't really matter who their existing rivalries are because they haven't been good enough consistently to develop much.

 

The idea of every in-division away game the Florida teams play, they're literally flying OVER the other divisions to get there is stupid. As far as snow-birds are concerned, there are probably just as many snowbirds from the New Jersey-New York area as there are from Quebec or Ontario.

[Marshall]

This playoff format confuses the hell out of me. 

[NJDevs4978]

In theory you could have four teams making the playoffs from each division with the fourth seed playing the top team from the other division depending on records unless I'm missing something. I'd love to see say, Anaheim win the Central and Dallas win the Pacific as #4 seeds, that'd really expose the fallacy of this system.

[devlman]

So they're changing everything up to appease a few teams in terms of time zones, but will then have playoffs where teams can potentially be flying across multiple time zones...

[sundstrom]

[Devilsfan118]

Not a fan at all, but...may as well try and learn to like it, since it's official

[Triumph]

I don't care if there is a playoff rivalry amongst any of them. Most of them have been lousy teams for a majority of the time the Southeast Division has existed. With lousy teams your rivalries are the teams you meet often in the regular season. In all actuality it doesn't really matter who their existing rivalries are because they haven't been good enough consistently to develop much.

 

Right, so no one's losing out on a rivalry here by them moving divisions.

 

 

The idea of every in-division away game the Florida teams play, they're literally flying OVER the other divisions to get there is stupid. As far as snow-birds are concerned, there are probably just as many snowbirds from the New Jersey-New York area as there are from Quebec or Ontario.

 

The difference is that it isn't hard to get tickets to metro-area games but it is very expensive to get Habs or Leafs tickets.  They probably voted against the realignment anyway - these people aren't enough to make up for the increased travel costs - but there were always going to be winners and losers in this scenario.

[NewarkDevil5]

Right, so no one's losing out on a rivalry here by them moving divisions.

 

 

 

 

The difference is that it isn't hard to get tickets to metro-area games but it is very expensive to get Habs or Leafs tickets.  They probably voted against the realignment anyway - these people aren't enough to make up for the increased travel costs - but there were always going to be winners and losers in this scenario.

 

So in essence you agree with me but want to argue this anyhow. I don't see how anyone in the Northeast Division can be considered as winning by having to constantly fly down to Florida. Are there certain fans of the Leafs and Habs that might gain the chance to get a handful of tickets? Probably. Is this a reason to screw up travel for Florida, Tampa, Buffalo, Ottawa, Boston and Detroit? Not in my opinion.

[NJDevs4978]

So in essence you agree with me but want to argue this anyhow. I don't see how anyone in the Northeast Division can be considered as winning by having to constantly fly down to Florida. Are there certain fans of the Leafs and Habs that might gain the chance to get a handful of tickets? Probably. Is this a reason to screw up travel for Florida, Tampa, Buffalo, Ottawa, Boston and Detroit? Not in my opinion.

 

I don't think the Yankees, Boston, Toronto and Baltimore really care about making three trips to Florida in one season to play one team in MLB.  If they do, they don't complain about it like NHL teams/fans do.

 

All those teams - Detroit, Boston, etc - have to make two, three trips max down there (playing them both same trip), big deal.  If they weren't in the same division they'd still be making one trip down there anyway.  So you're really talking about one or two extra trips 'max'.  You can combine it with a couple other non-conference games down south and have a four-five game road trip.  It's the Florida teams themselves that lose out travel-wise but presumably they'll get plenty of $$$ for their travel woes with four Original Six teams coming in and northern transplants.

Edited by NJDevs4978, 14 March 2013 - 03:52 PM.