NHL Realigned for 2012-13 Season
I went on vacation for a few days only to return to find an NHL nothing like the state in which I left it. Apparently, the NHL's Board of Governors decided yesterday to radically realign the league from six divisions into four conferences.
And based on the emails I'm getting, a lot of you want to see Icethetics host a contest to name new conferences and create its trophies. Sadly, I have too much going on here already to conduct another contest, but I'm more than happy to at least offer this blog post so we can all share our opinions.
Here are how the new conferences break down:
Conference A
Conference B
Conference C
Conference D
If you're curious about my take on the new setup, here it is. It's annoying because I'm a Tampa Bay Lightning fan. If I weren't a Lightning fan, I'd have to call it perfect. Dallas, Columbus and Detroit should be beside themselves over not having to play so many games in the Pacific Time Zone. Most of the great rivalries are intact. It's fantastic.
But why do Tampa and Sunrise have to get lumped into the "Northeast Division" basically? And even as I ask the question, I know the answer. You can't break up Philly and Pittsburgh nor any of the New York area teams. You can't separate the eastern Canadian teams nor break up rivalries like Sabres/Leafs, Habs/Bruins or Penguins/Capitals (especially now that HBO just released the first 24/7 Winter Classic on DVD!).
I know everyone has there two cents on how to improve things for their own teams. And that nobody cares what anybody else things. But here's mine anyway. Move the Pennsylvania teams to Conference C and put Tampa Bay and Florida in Conference D. I know, it simply can't be done that way.
The way it is now is just sort of a geographical necessity. So like Boucher says, let's start building the new practice rink in Vermont. We'll be spending a lot of time up there next year. And we'll only play the Hurricanes as many times as we play the Canucks.
Though I suppose the good news out of all this for me personally is that now I'm guaranteed that the Lightning will visit my neck of the woods (Vancouver) at least once a season. This year, they're not making that trip at all thanks to the current setup. (Interestingly, however, I will still be seeing a Bolts-Canucks game this season.)
That's all. Your turn, now. How do you fix the new alignment? Or do you? And what do you name the new conferences? What about the trophies? And how should the third round of playoffs work?
Chris
Nevermind. The realignment plan is off, at least for 2012-13. The NHL didn't get consent from the NHLPA. The idea was kind of nice while it lasted though, wasn't it?
Reader Comments (75)
Well, I'm a Rangers fan, and I wouldn't want to be without the Islanders, Devils, Flyers or Penguins. Especially the Flyers feels like a big rival. And Flyers/Pens have a big rivalry as well, and Caps/Pens make Bettman really really happy. The old Atlantic is the Divison that would make most sense to break up if you think geographically, but since it's one of the current divisions with the best rivalries, it's a bad idea.
So they had to break up any of the other two Eastern Divisions. And the south one, with only 4 teams makes most sense. Plus there's some pretty good rivalries in the NE Dvision. It's kinda impossible to get the Conf C & D to work perfect geographically. But if I were a Lightning or Panthers fan, getting into a division with 3 Original 6 teams while keeping the geographically closest rival would get me a lot more excited than the current division. I'd gladly trade the Caps for that.
oops... this whole thing got confusing... colorado is supposed to move to A and Boston is in D. Plus with me forgetting to put Boston in I forgot to put Nashville back in B
so...
Conference A: Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Phoenix, and Colorado
Conference B: Dallas, Minnesota, St. Louis, Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, and Winnipeg
Conference C: Tampa Bay, Florida, Columbus, Carolina, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, and Washington
Conference D: Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Buffalo, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey, and Boston
Chris: That's a pretty solid point about how "just because certain teams are good now doesn't mean they will be in 10 yrs... Or even 5".
But let me ask you this- (hypothetically speaking) Lets say the league decided to group Tampa Bay in a conference which consisted of: Philly, Pittsburgh, Boston, Washington, Carolina, NJ, Florida. Would you still be saying that "fair competition" is "the worst argument" in that particular situation? Are you saying that you would be fine with that because there is a chance that some of those teams won't be as good 5-10 yrs down the road? Or do you think you would be somewhat bitter and pissed off, due to being stuck in a situation like that?
Teams like the Bruins, Flyers, Penguins, and Capitals have already got their teams futures all but covered, and can potentially stay competitive for many years to come. Hell, even the Panthers have shown serious signs of turning the tide as of late! There would be SO much talent in a group like that, which could methodically be split between two conferences. So why risk eliminating such big names/teams early on if the league could easily set them up to potentially end up playing one another, come rounds 3 and 4, during the playoffs?
I'm very sure the league wants teams like Tampa and Florida to thrive and be successful on a consistent basis! They want Crosby, Ovechkin, Giroux, Seguin, and Stamkos in the playoffs as much as possible! It's better for the game when they're involved at crutial times during the season. It's better for the game when big market clubs are given a chance to compete, and make deep runs into April, May, and June. So wouldn't you agree that strategically splitting heavyweight teams between 2 conferences is still better than grouping them all together, even IF there's the slightest chance that they might completely suck a few yrs down the road?
And for the record, I'm not attacking you... I'm just curious about what you think. Cheers!
You know what'll be easier (and make more sense) than moving Pittsburgh and Philly to the "North" conference?
Moving the 2 NY teams to it. Then you have a "North" and a "South" east coast conference. Geographically makes sense, and although you're breaking up Rangers-Devils, you keep Rangers-Islanders and have 4 of the Original 6 in 1 conference.
A: Gretzky
B: Sawchuck
C: Orr
D: Messier
Winner of A gets the Jari Kurri award
Winner of B gets the Rick Rypien award
Winner of C gets the Henri Richard Award
Winner of D gets the Brendan Shanahan award
Prince Of Wales to the C Vs. D
Clarence Campbell to the A Vs. B
A,B Vs. C,D gets the Stanely cup
Smythe, Patrick, Adams, Norris. 'Nuff said.
Embrace the heritage and the classic battles, NHL.
Randell- That would still create issues though. You'd not just be breaking up the NJ/NYR rivalry, but you would also be breaking up the Philly/NYR rivalry as well (one of the better rivaries in hockey right now). Plus that keeps big names like Stamkos,Crosby, and Ovechkin in one conference. Untimately limiting everybody else who's not in group D to seeing those players a grand total of 1 time a year in their home building. Those names generate big revenue when they play in other cities. At least when you have Tampa Bay in Conference C, the fans in those cities would still get to see a top rated player (Stamkos), multiple times a year.
I really don't get why people think it's such a big deal that Tampa and Florida are in Conference C? These places are 2 hrs away (by plane) for the most part, and in the same time zones. It's not like it will create an overwhelming amount of wear and tear. My Canucks still wind up with almost more travel under their belts than any other team, annually, and they still manage to get by just fine.
Aligning the league to make sure "strong teams" are not bunched together in one conference makes no sense whatsoever. You don't even have to go back more than two years when Montreal and Buffalo dominated the northeast division and now it's Boston and Toronto. The league is not going to realign every few years just because some teams are declining and some are on the upswing. The Pens and the Bruins may look to be set for years, but that doesn't mean that it will turn out that way. The league knows that teams are up and down all the time. The realignment decisions are never based on how well any particular team(s) are doing at the time.
Harold Ballard tried that one back in the '80s moving Toronto into the Norris division (and away from Boston and Montreal) because it was considered a "weak" division. That worked out real well for them back then...
I think what the league has done is the best solution for all the teams. It evens out travel for all teams, and makes the division/conference important. Right now, your position in your division means nothing unless you are first. All in all I like it.
Gary- I agree with you and thought you brang up some excellent points. I do not in any way disagree with you or Chris about how teams rise and fall on a regular basis in this league... I just like to play devil's advocate, lol. But to be fair, I also don't think anyone has spoken about calling for a realignment every time there is a discrepancy within a conference though. I'll agree that the argument which was brought up about what's "fair" is weak since teams fail and succeed all the time in todays NHL. But I'm sure that you'll agree that this new setup does keep C and D looking pretty even for the most part (as things stand for now)... And that's only a good thing, isn't it? So I personally wouldn't want that messed with, if possible.
I, like yourself, am quite happy with the new arrangement, and wouldn't want anything changed. I do not however believe that travel is the ONLY thing that is kept in mind when the owners are discussing realignment though. I think If JUST travel was the case, it might of made just as much sense to put teams like Boston, Montreal, and Ottawa in Con D and move Detroit, Columbus, Pittsburgh, and Carolina in Con C. But it seems like the NHL went to great lengths to keep exsisting rivalries in tact, and maintain a certain consistency with the fans.
Plus, I like the how playoffs can potentially workout with this new, up and coming setup. More of the big named, money market teams can stay in the mix this way, rather than knocking one another out in the 1st rounds (you'll obviousy still see some, but not quite as many as if they were all grouped together). And lets face it, the league thrives that much more if teams like Boston, Toronto, Montreal / NYR, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Washington are in the mix, and are enabled to make deeper runs during the post season. This new setup can allow for that, along with the added chance that we can still see some rivals meet each other as well. That has been the #1 point I've been trying to make when saying things like keeping "balance"... You can still potentially have the more "popular" teams sticking around for that much longer on those years where everything works out just so.
I don't mind it. It's just too bad that arguable the biggest rivalry in the last 5 years is being separated. Chicago and Vancouver.
I think the 'Third string goalie' site got it right when one of their ideas was this 4 division realignment way back on Monday.
Looks very good geographically to me.
A) Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, L.A., Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver
B) Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, St. Louis, Winnipeg
C) Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, NYI, NYR, New Jersey, Ottawa, Toronto
D) Carolina, Florida, Nashville, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Tampa Bay, Washington
If Phoenix moves and it moves to Quebec City, not sure what I would change. Quebec City would be in C; So you would have to move someone from C to D - New Jersey??? Not sure what would be a better fix.
As far as names for the 4 conferences. I'm sure they will go with four generic names based on geographic location. I'd say get a list of all the players who have retired jerseys in your conference and have a vote (fan vote, team vote, whatever). Love it if the winner for Conference D was Daneyko, but there would be better odds on a Winter Classic game in Florida.
With the Florida teams grouped into the former NE div, it averages out the traveling distances to be more fair (though Conference C still has the best travel scenario).
I think this is a very smart move by the league; they've probably been sitting on this for a while. This may why they couldnt redo this season's sched with Winnipeg swapping Detroit (or CBJ), it's because they wanted to implement the realignment.
Name-wise, I think it will be A) Western; B) Central; C) Atlantic; D) Eastern
Instead of this big mess, why not put Winnipeg in the northwest, move Minnesota to the central and switch Nashville to the Eastern Conference to play in the southeast? No, let's have a big f'n complicated mess.
love to see Winnipeg in the same conference as Edmonton but cant see anybody to swap with
I don't like the 4 conference set up. They just needed to change the divisions, have a more balanced schedule and get rid of the divisional seeding system. The new system just creates more problems.
All they had to do was go to four divisions in two conferences and it would have been perfect. Now you're going to see half of the divisions being ultra competitive and half being a cake walk. It'll be like the old divisional system where bad teams will get in over good ones. Mark my words: people are not going to be happy once the playoffs are seeded. There is nothing fair about the new system.
My wild stab at conference names:
Conference A: The Frontier Conference (Trophy: The Gold Pan)
Conference B: The Winter Conference (Trophy: The Silver Axe)
Conference C: The Nor'easter Conference (Trophy: The Bronze Bell)
Conference B: The Patriot Conference (Trophy: The Copper Eagle)
A = Western
B = Central
C = Eastern
D = Mid-Atlantic
This is a GREAT news for me, I'm a die-hard fan of the 4-group alignment (name them either "conferences" or "divisions", I don't care, though I prefer "divisions") and a lover of the "divisional playoffs": greater, more heated rivalries and hard-fought playoff series!
I think that the one proposed by the BoG is the best grouping possible, though the inclusion of FL-based teams in the northeastern group might look odd. You couldn't split up the Tri-State area teams nor the PIT-WSH couple, so this was basically the only solution available.
Had the Thrashers not been relocated, conferences C and D could have been designed as follows:
C: BOS, BUF, NYI, NYR, NJD, MTL, OTT, TOR
D: ATL, CAR, FLA, PHI, PIT, TBL, WSH
with conference B being composed of 7 teams.
I'd like to see the return of the classic Adams, Patrick, Norris and Smythe group names and the Conference playoff champions being paired 1-4 / 2-3 based on their regular season records to make an all-East or all-West Stanley Cup Finals series possible.
If PHX winds up moving to Quebec, it'd be split up 15-15.. so why not make Conferences A and B divisions in the Western Conference and C and D in the East? That way we never wind up with an all-west or all-east final. Still 2 conferences.
Florida and Tampa should be placed is Group "D" with Carolina, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, New Jersey, and Washington since they are all the Southern most teams. Then place the Islanders and Rangers in group "C" with Buffalo, Toronto, Boston, Ottawa, and Montreal. It just makes more geographical sense.
Not sure if anyone suggested this already, and Im pretty late on this thread (busy with exams).. Give the new conferences some meaning for fans of today. I know naming them after stars of the past Richard, Howe would be an alright idea, but here's the thing. I have never seen either of those guys play, I have almost no emotional attachment to either of those players.
Name the conferences after the enforcers that died this past year.. it would be a great homage to a group of players who rarely get the recognition they deserve for living such a stressful lifestyle. Imagine getting to the rink every night knowing you had to fight?
Conferences named after NorthEast -Belak, NorthWest-Rypien, Central-Probert, Atlantic-Boogaard
No idea on the rest but A should be the expansion conference
Player's association Denied it today lol funny how everyone acting liek it was set in stone or something...
Jordan B: Actually, the funny part is the league didn't really need approval from the NHLPA for the realignment. They just don't want to stir things up right before the CBA negotiations.
trade the two ny teams for the two florida teams