NHL Realignment - Possible?

[Ebenezer]

Do you really think the NHL will realign? The Red Wings don't want to play games out west...the west wants to see the young superstars that are in the east...Atlanta doesn't want to move to the West...Pittsburgh could move and throw off the league balance...I sat down and tried to come up with a plan for realignment that might make sense...let me know what you think - I am sure it would NEVER get implemented.

Eastern Conference
Atlantic Division - Pitts out and Wash in to make a true Atlantic coast conference
NYR
NYI
NJ
Wash
Philly

NE Division - Stays the same
Boston
Buff
Ott
Mont
Tor

Central Conference - Less travel for Midwest Teams
Midwest Division - Pitts in and Nashville out
Detroit
*Pitts
Chicago
St. Louis
Columbus

SE Division - Wash out and Nash in makes for even stronger SE rivalries (call it the NASCAR division)
Atl
Fla
TB
Nash
Carolina

Western Conference
Mountain Division - Stays the same
Colo
*Minn
Calgary
Edmonton
Dallas

Pacific Division - Stays the same
LA
Ana
SJ
Van
Phoenix

*-Should Pitts move to KC or Winnipeg they would flip flop divisions with Minnesota

Regular Season 82 games:
8 games against each team in division = 32
4 games against each team in other division within conference = 20
3 games against each team in other two conferences (rotating home/away)= 30

Playoffs -
18 teams make playoffs instead of 16
Total possible games increases from 105 to 121 (increasing gate and TV revenues and generating more money for league and players)

Each conference would have 2 division winners and the teams with the next 4 best records would be the wild card teams. Teams are ranked 1-6. All division winners get a bye. Wild card teams play best of 7 (Wild Card Round - 3vs6, 4v5). Wild card winners play division winners (Divisional Round - 1vlowest seed, 2vsecond lowest seed). The two remaining teams play for confernece title (Conference Round). Each conference sends winner to 9 game round robin tournament (Each team would play 6 total games - 3 against each team). Best two records play for Stanley Cup - best of seven).

Thoughts?

[LtFinFan66]

They still play hockey :idunno:

[Ebenezer]

They still play hockey :idunno:
and it is still more exciting than the NBA, MLB, MLS, NASCAR, Golf and Tennis.

[LtFinFan66]

More exciting than....In My Opinion

NBA: No
MLB: Yes
MLS: Yes
NASCAR: Yes
Golf :No
Tennis: Yes
Curling :No

[BlackMetalNinja]

No way they'd do it round robin style. All major sports will continue to use a 2 conference system pitting each conference's winners against each other. 2 teams is much more clear cut then 3.

Nice work on all the planning of it though, more than I could have come up with!

[SabreEleven]

You must have burnt over 100 calories just coming up with that playoff system.

Your alignment makes sense, but instead of playing out of conference 3 times why don't you make it 2 and cut back games from 82 to 72 games.

[Patrick76777]

?


They were actually toying with the idea of 2 divisions in each Conf.

Moving Pitts and another to the Northeast and leaving the others in the Atlantic.

[Crisis]

18 teams make the playoffs!

Why don't we just skip the regular season and let everyone in the playoffs!