NHL Realignment Project – Week 35
2012/01/25 2 Comments
Merge and Move
This week, we’re harkening back to a year in NHL history where it wasn’t about expansion and relocation, but something else… a merger. In 1976 the Cleveland Barons merged with the Minnesota North Stars, so we’re running with that precedence and doing a little house cleaning. In a cold, calculated move (based purely on numbers), we’re taking the four teams with the worst attendance this year and merging them into two new teams AND to make it even more fun, we’re moving the two resultant teams to two cities that lost their teams. OBVIOUSLY this never would happen, but I’m still in a farcical mood, avoiding reality-based realignment scenarios at least for another week. Let’s check out the fun…
The Map:
NHL Realignment Map - Week 35
The Breakdown:
I’m actually gonna go back to the short-lived four-conference setup.
| Pacific Conference | Central Conference | Northeast Conference | Atlantic Conference |
| 1. Anaheim Ducks | 1. Chicago Blackhawks | 1. Boston Bruins | 1. Carolina Hurricanes |
| 2. Calgary Flames | 2. Detroit Red Wings | 2. Buffalo Sabres | 2. Florida Panthers |
| 3. Colorado Avalanche | 3. Kansas City Scouts | 3. Montreal Canadiens | 3. Hartford Whalers |
| 4. Edmonton Oilers | 4. Minnesota Wild | 4. Ottawa Senators | 4. New Jersey Devils |
| 5. Los Angeles Kings | 5. Nashville Predators | 5. Philadelphia Flyers | 5. New York Rangers |
| 6. San Jose Sharks | 6. St. Louis Blues | 6. Pittsburgh Penguins | 6. Tampa Bay Lightning |
| 7. Vancouver Canucks | 7. Winnipeg Jets | 7. Toronto Maple Leafs | 7. Washington Capitals |
Gained teams:
Kansas City, Hartford
Lost teams:
Phoenix, Dallas, New York Islanders, Columbus
The Benefits:
• Travel — No team has conference-mates more than a single time zone over. And while the Pacific and Atlantic Conferences have pretty big north-south trips as part of their make-up, anyone who has traveled understands that that is much less taxing than east-west travel.
• TV Times — Kind of an added bonus from the previous entry, the lack of time zone insanity, keeps start times for most games within reasonable hours. Meaning better ratings and better exposure to/for young fans
• REVENGE — The folks in Hartford and Kansas City can do some happy-flips for getting their teams back. It worked for Winnipeg, right?
• Rivalries — CHI/DET get to stay together. NY/NJ, PIT/PHI, EDM/CGY too. And KC/STL is reborn! Sorry we couldn’t get Hartford together with Boston, but they do get to jostle with their other traditional rival, NYR.
• Equity — The conferences are all the same size… seven teams, so no whining.
(H/T to oilersnation.com for the original map)
Don’t forget to share our lil’ project with your hockey fan friends. And, as always, thanks for reading. Until next Sunday!
— TF
Western Conference:
Northwest: Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Seattle/Portland
Southwest: San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Colorado
Midwest: Dallas, St. Louis, Nashville, Kansas City
Central: Detroit, Chicago, Minnesota, Winnipeg
Eastern Conference:
Northeast: Toronto, Ottawa, Montréal, Québec City
Ohio Valley: Columbus, Buffalo, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia
Atlantic: Boston, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey
Southeast: Washington DC, Carolina, Tampa Bay, Florida
->Phoenix gets relocated to Kansas City.
->Expansion teams arise in Seattle/Portland, Québec City
->If Islanders are moved, they can be moved to Hartford
->Boston/Montréal rivalry is split, however, Montréal welcomes the Québec rivalry and Boston welcomes the New York rivalry.
Schedule:
5 divisional games per team
3 conference games per team
2 non-conference games per team
Total of 83 regular season games.
->Road trips are scheduled to play an entire division at once.
->Playoffs follow the same format.
Nice work! You even made a justification to the MTL/BOS folks who would flip out at the breaking up of their rivalry… It’s like you actually read my blog or something
Only concern I could see arise is the beef that teams would have with divisional and conference games being uneven. I can just imagine the cow that would be had if, say the Edmonton Oilers made it into the playoffs as an 8th seed one point ahead of the Calgary Flames who missed it as a 9th seed in a year that the Oilers had the 5th divisional game at home… and won it.
Other than that, I dig it. Thanks for reading!
—TF