NHL Realignment Project – Week 49
The Benefits:
• Rivalries — I tried my best to keep most of the major rivalries together. The more obvious ones are all here, of course, but even the “secondary” ones like the Sabres and the Leafs have been maintained where possible. Some of the Hull Conference teams could evolve into good rivalries too, like Dallas and Nashville and obviously Kansas City and St. Louis. And to all you who constantly complain that the PHI/NYR rivalry is more important than the PIT/PHI rivalry… once again, the Broadway Blueshirts and the Broad Street Bullies and kept together.
• Travel — Four conferences cut down on travel for the teams that currently have the heaviest burden (mainly Dallas, Winnipeg, Minnesota). Teams with the lightest travel burdens right now add a little more, but are still in much better shape than the frequent-flier champs. All conferences now span two time zones and none span three. Some of the old guard on the east coast won’t like this, but fair is fair.
• Heritage — The conferences are named for some of the greats from the history of the game. Only issue with this is having only four will spark countless debate on the choices (Richard, Plante, Kennedy, Bossy, Smith, Lafleur, etc.)
Scheduling:
Each team plays:
– against its seven conference-mates twice at home and twice on the road each:
4 games x 7 teams = 28 games
– against the teams in the other conferences once at home and once on the road:
2 games x 24 teams = 48 games
– half of each conference pair up for an additional home-and-home series (switch the pairings each season):
2 games x 3 teams = 6 games
28 + 48 + 6 = 82 game season
Playoffs:
• Top four teams from each conference qualify for a “final four” style tournament. All series are best of seven.
• Round 1: Conference Semifinals (1 seed vs. 4 seed; 2 vs. 3 (based on overall record))
• Round 2: Conference Finals (first round winners play each other)
• Round 3: Stanley Cup Semifinals (best overall record of remaining teams picks it’s opponent for this round)
• Round 4: Stanley Cup Finals
As always, thanks for reading, and don’t forget to use the sharing buttons to spread the word and wish me luck on my impending fatherhood in February.
—Tom