Then in December 2011, the NHL unveiled their "four-conference" plan. I wasn't so much concerned with the team placement as I was with the playoff plan, or lack of one.
For the Avalanche it was keeping their division, but subtract Minnesota and add San Jose, LA, Anaheim and Phoenix. Not a big gain or loss there.
And then this week the NHL announces a new "four-division" plan and playoff plan. The playoffs would start as divisional playoffs, but with wild-cards per conference. That sentence is confusing. Let's try again. Each division gets the top 3 teams. And then there are two wild-card spots for the West. And two for the east. Here's what it looks like:
So the wild cards fix the imbalance problem with some divisions having 7 teams, and some 8, right?
Nope.
The West has 14 teams, the East 16.
The West will have 8 teams in, 6 out.
The East will have 8 teams in, 8 out.
In other words, in the West once you takeaway the top three spots in the two divisions, you have 8 teams fighting for 2 wild-card spots. But in the East, you have 10 teams fighting for 2 spots.
If the West and East both had 15, it wouldn't matter if each conference had uneven divisions. How does nobody in the NHL league office realize this? I guess they probably did but think that timezones are more important than fairness. They have 16 teams in the Eastern timezone so they put 16 teams in the Eastern conference. It prevents Detroit or Columbus from having to play at inconvenient times, but is that really worth it?
And because of the wild-cards, you're not going to have true divisional playoffs, which I thought was one of the selling points. So the playoff plan is kind of a disaster.
As for the Avalanche, I love, love love the new division. I never gave a shit about Vancouver/Calgary/Edmonton. But gaining rivalries with St. Louis and Chicago I think if fantastic. And I can get more excited about playing Minnesota, Dallas and Nashville than Phoenix and Anaheim.
And this way, Colorado doesn't have to get out their passports as much.
I like the realignment, although I'll miss the division rivalries with St. Louis, Chicago, and Nashville now.
ReplyDeleteWhat I've heard is that the NHL is expecting to expand. One place mentioned is Seattle. So they would be out west. But what if Phoenix moves to the Toronto area like I've heard grumblings about? And why couldn't the Rangers and Islanders be in the Wings division and put the south Florida teams in the mid-Atlantic division?