The Board of Governors authorized commissioner Gary Bettman to implement the proposal pending input from the NHL Players' Association. It could be put in place as early as next season.
The league considered two plans to accommodate Atlanta's move to Winnipeg this past summer. The first would have simply moved the Jets to the Central Division and either Detroit or Columbus to the Southeast.
"The simple one wasn't as simple as it looked when you got done with it," Bettman said.
The board opted to go with the more dramatic switch, creating four geographic conferences -- two with eight teams and two with seven.
The new format will increase overall travel in the regular season, especially for Eastern Conference teams who will now have more trips West. But it cuts down on travel for some Western Conference teams, which was a critical issue for teams like Detroit, Dallas, Columbus and Nashville.
Teams will play home-and-home series against all nonconference teams and five or six games in their conference. The top four teams in each conference will make the playoffs, with the first two rounds consisting of solely intraconference matchups. Bettman said he will consult with general managers in the spring before deciding whether to reseed the playoffs in the third round or to have pre-determined match ups."West Coast" Conference:
Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver
"Midwest" Conference:
Chicago, Columbus, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis, Winnipeg
Bad Geographically Based Conference:
Boston, Buffalo, FLORIDA?????, Montreal, Ottawa, TAMPA BAY????, Toronto
"Atlantic" Conference:
Carolina, New Jersey, NY Islanders, NY Rangers, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington
After the Atlanta Thrashers moved to Winnipeg last earlier this year, their was some debate about if they should just keep them in the Southeast division in the East or move them to the Central division in the West, with Detroit coming back to the East. The NHL decided to awkwardly keep them in the Southeast for this year, and then ultimately make a dramatic change to the whole NHL landscape in the offseason. Well that dramatic change has happened.
There's parts of me that love this, parts of me that hate it. It eliminates the stupid "division leader" rule for the playoffs where the top team in each division is guaranteed a 1, 2, or 3 playoff seed no regardless of their point total. That' had been a problem in the past, Especially in the Eastern Conference, with the Southeast Division(hockey's most awkward division) always slacking behind it's fellow divisions in the East. Now the top four teams in each "conference" will make the playoffs and be seeded appropriately, not simply based if they won a cupcake division title or not. I also think they appropriately placed the former Western Conference teams into appropriate conferences. They created a conference that pretty much serves the west coast and one that serves the midwest. Bravo to the NHL's geography teacher on this one, probably got an "A."
But when they got to the Eastern Conference, they completely botched the conferences geographically. Now while I think they should just discontinue the Florida franchises in general, they have to deal with them, and deal with them properly, they did not. There really is only a small, easy change that should be made. Instead of moving Florida and Tampa Bay into the "Northeast" conference, they should have put them in the "Atlantic" conference, and switched Carolina and Washington into the "Northeast" conference. This new alignment involves more traveling for the eastern teams, but now that you've put the Florida teams in a conference with 4 teams North of the Border(Buffalo basically is in Canada) you add even more traveling for these squads. It is much easier for the Tri-State and Pennsylvania teams to travel to Florida than it is for our northern most squads. I know that Pittsburgh and Washington have a made-up-national-TV-ratings-boost "rivalry" but more importantly it's just a major inconvenience for those teams in the north. Keep the Carolina and Washington rivalry intact and just bite the bullet and make everyone happy. But no. The NHL HAS TO HAVE Crosby and Ovie playing each other an extra two-to-four times a year, so they can play on the NBC Game Of The Week six times instead of four.
So now we've made appropriate changes to the playoff problem, but we've created a geographic problem for one conference that could've be easily solved if it wasn't for some selfishness by the NHL marketing department. Gary Bettman has proved to be a good commissioner at times. But he's also failed to see that improving the entire NHL product is a far superior idea, instead of zoning in on one or two superstars playing each other more times a season. The Ovie vs. Crosby matchup has been in it's prime for 4 years now, and it has been an incredible disappointment for both the casual and passionate hockey fan.
Let's make hockey better Gare instead of making the spotlight brighter where it's already annoyingly bright.
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