NHL Thread

[RaginRonic]

A while ago, I talked about division realignment in the NHL. Tonight, I did some actual work to figure out how it could work with a 32-team NHL, while being a bit fairer to the Canadian NHL clubs.

First, it would involve the return of the Quebec Nordiques in the East, and the expansion of Las Vegas in the West. The alignments are below for both 4 divisions, and 8 divisions, with playoff qualifications explained.

2 Conferences-4 Divisions To make playoffs, you finish 1st to 4th in your division. No WildCard OR Division Crossover, no matter the reg. season points. Eastern Conference Division 1 QUE MTL BOS NYI NYR NJ PHI WAS Division 2 OTT TOR CAR FLA BUF PIT TB CLB Western Conference Division 3 WPG EDM DET NSH CHI STL MIN DAL Division 4 CGY VAN COL ARI VEG ANA LA SJ 2 Conferences-8 Divisions To make playoffs, you finish 1st or 2nd in your division. No WildCard OR Division Crossover, no matter the reg. season points. Eastern Conference Division 1 QUE BOS NYI NYR Division 2 MTL NJ PHI WAS Division 3 OTT CAR FLA BUF Division 4 TOR PIT TB CLB Western Conference Division 5 WPG DET NSH CHI Division 6 EDM STL MIN DAL Division 7 CGY COL ARI VEG Division 8 VAN ANA LA SJ

As you can see, in both scenarios, each division has an equal number of Canadian and U.S. NHL clubs.

Also, there is NO MORE East V. West Conf. play in the reg. season, to save on jet lag and travel costs.

The All Star Game also is tweaked to a 4-quarter game. Each team has 4 goaltenders, who each play 1 quarter only. If there's a tie, the best goalie per team plays the 5 minute OT + shootout. Each team captain is part of each conference(1E, 1W). Winning captain secures home ice advantage for his conference's rep. in the Stanley Cup Final.

To further cut down on jet lag and travel cost, the Cup Final is changed to 2-3-2 game split.

In the 8-division NHL scenario, for the Conf. Semi-Final round(Round 2), the division playoff champions are seeded based off the combined reg. season point standings of the teams that qualified for the playoffs within each division. Best division playoff winner would play 4th place division playoff winner, while 2nd place division playoff winner plays 3rd place division playoff winner.