NHL Realignment: For Better or For Worse?

Drawing out potential divisions and conferences for NHL realignment is something I often used to do to pass the time as I drudged my way through high school and the first few years at URI. It's always fun to dream up something radical, especially when you could get rid of hockey teams in Phoenix, Atlanta, and Florida, and put them in locales such as Winnipeg, Quebec City, Seattle, or some place in Southern Ontario. I thought I had perfect solutions every time, fair and balanced, no questions asked.

Usually these scenarios included me either adding two teams (for a total of 32) or contracting two teams (always Phoenix and Atlanta, for a total of 28). Why those numbers? Because they're divisible by 4. And that meant 4 divisions, which meant a return to divisional playoffs in hockey. The Bruins and Canadiens would match-up in the post-season even more often than they do now, like they used to, before the NHL went to straight conference playoffs. All three New York-area teams would be re-developing post-season rivalries. Pittsburgh-Philadelphia. Chicago-Detroit. Heck even the California teams would all have to go through one another.

Sounds pretty exciting, right? Well guess what, it just became a reality again! The NHL moved back to 4 divisions! Divisional playoffs are back baby! Just one little problem.

There's still 30 teams.

And that means there are two conferences with 8 teams, and two conferences with 7 teams. They're calling them conferences, not divisions, apparently. Granted the NHL accomplished it's mission of basing divisions (mostly) off of time zones. And it does make travel more fair to the Western Conference teams who really aren't all that West at all (Detroit, Columbus, Nashville in particular).

But tell me....How exactly is it fair if 4 teams from each "conference" make the playoffs, as seems to be the plan, if there's a different number of teams in each conference? Say what you will about Bud Selig, but didn't his baseball realignment plan just solve the issue of unbalanced divisions?

How will the schedule work? Supposedly the plan is to play a home-and-home against every team not in your conference, with the rest of the games being against your conference opponents. But if you have 7 other teams in your conference as opposed to 6 other teams, doesn't that create yet another unbalance?

In case you want to know what the actual conferences will look like, here they are:

Conference "A": Vancouver, Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Phoenix, Edmonton, Calgary, Colorado


Conference "B" Detroit, Chicago, Nashville, St. Louis, Winnipeg, Minnesota, St. Louis, Dallas, Columbus


Conference "C" Boston, Montreal, Toronto, Ottawa, Buffalo, Tampa Bay, Florida


Conference "D" Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington, Carolina, New Jersey, NY Rangers, NY Islanders


And for the other great unknown: Since these are conferences, not divisions, what happens when you ultimately win your conference? Will "A" automatically be paired up against "B", and "C" with "D"? Will those pairings rotate? Will teams be re-seeded accordingly?

As a Bruins fan, I shouldn't be complaining. Not only did we get placed in a 7-team conference, we added more Lightning and Panthers games to the schedule. I know Florida is doing well this year but let's look at it over the long-haul realistically. The "C" conference was the one conference that could afford to take on both Florida teams, as it already has three-Original 6 members, in addition to two other solid hockey markets in Buffalo and Ottawa. And it's great that the Florida teams will draw in those other 5 on a more regular basis rather than Carolina, Washington, and Atlanta Winnipeg. It could definitely help transform the Panthers into a more reliable hockey market.

What about Winnipeg, just back on the hockey map after a 15-year hiatus. No other Canadian teams in their conference? I know that from a time zone standpoint they're the only team from the Great White North that hails from the Central time zone. But should a concern of Bettman be to establish Winnipeg some rivalries with, you know, other Canadian teams?

I also think that the two Pennsylvania teams should have been grouped with the current Northeast division, and that the two Florida teams should have been grouped with the three New York teams, Washington, and Carolina. This makes sense on two levels: I realize the time zones are the same, but isn't traveling from Tampa to Boston (as their closest non-Florida divisional game) a bit strenuous? Carolina and Washington bridge the gap from the mid-Atlantic region to the southeast. Also.....and this is where I guess realignment gets kind of cool.....

Wouldn't it be interesting if Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin were in separate conferences? You know, maybe duke it out in the Stanley Cup Finals every so often? That can't happen now, but since they'll be in the same conference instead, that means post-season meetings are much more likely between the two superstars of hockey.

And as I mentioned earlier, more Bruins-Canadiens, or even Bruins-Leafs and Leafs-Canadiens in the post-season. Conceivably a Boston-New York (Isles or Blueshirts) Stanley Cup is possible. Boston vs. New York in anything is already pretty cool; a showdown for Lord Stanley's Cup is a possibility too now? Where do I sign?

Plenty of rivalries from the "old" conferences could now become Stanley Cup battles. Red Wings-Avalanche from back in the day? Bruins-Flyers? Even Bruins-Penguins would be an attention grabber.

One more bonus is that when the Coyotes inevitably leave Arizona, they can easily be placed into another conference based on that relocation. Maybe they'll even wind up in the same conference as the Bruins, as the Quebec Nordiques 2.0?

So in the end, there are many different pros and many different cons with NHL realignment, as there are with many things in life. In the end I think it has the right framework set up; Bettman now just needs to either add two teams (won't happen) or contract two teams (should happen, but that's almost as doubtful as the first scenario). I'm very interested to see how the rest of this plays out, if we can get to an even number, and if not, I hope Bettman can devise the fairest way possible to make this work. Because it's exciting, no doubt. But Bettman also though adding teams in Atlanta, Phoenix, Dallas, Nashville, Columbus, Tampa Bay, and south Florida were good ideas. So you never know.