NHL realignment

[FolignosJock]

^{You can do the math whichever way you like, but in a division of five teams there is only one guananteed team in so the odds can be as low as 20 %, not the fixed 4 in 7 amount.}

 

hahaha reallly?? Show me one time in the history of this playoff system which is since the 92-93 season in which that happened,,,, I'll wait

[Who Else?]

It probably never happened. I'm not going to waste my time researching a hypothetical scenario, but note that every playoff season two divisions in the NHL only produce two playoff teams. And yes I know there is a converse to that.

 

 

This was beside my real point anyway. With the new conferences of seven teams, if you play everyone 6 times that is 36 games. When you play everyone else home and home, that is another 46 games. This leaves another 10 free dates. Will you get to see the other conference's teams like Philly, Pitt, Rangers enough when you factor in the other teams you do not want to see as much like the Isles. With the first two rounds in division you may only see philly-rangers 2 or three times a year.

[Taro T]

Oh, I guess you didn't. :P Weeelllll, the only current system that tries to do this is the college football BCS. If every team in the NHL played the same schedule, you could go just by points tallied in the regular season. But that's not how it goes; we all know it's not possible for each team to get the same schedule (time zones, travel). Hypothetically, a team accruing 102 points in say, the SE Division could be on par with a team the accrues 94 points in the Atlantic Division, because of an easier schedule.

 

The NBA and NHL would potentially have the two top teams, if in the same division, play in the Conference Semis.

The NFL and MLB would have the top two teams, if in the same division, definitely playing in the Conference (League) Championships.

 

Not trying to pick on you, I just find this stuff interesting.

Had the league stayed within it's former 2 conference system w/ 2 divisions in each conference, I've long been an advocate for going back to a system similar to what the league did in the early 70's to prevent St. Louis from getting pounded in the Finals EVERY year. Have 4 teams make it into the playoffs from each division and play within division in the 1st round; 2nd round goes to top team in each division w/in the conference playing the other division's lower seeded survivor; and you go cross conference in the 3rd round; with the 2 survivors playing for the Stanley Cup in the Finals.

 

IF the best teams have the best regular season records and there are no upsets (which if they TRULY are the 2 best teams, they shouldn't get upset), then you automatically end up with the 2 best teams in the Finals. Regardless of whether there are upsets or not, you now could have any 2 teams in the entire league meeting up in the Finals.

 

Right now, you can never have Buffalo - Boston, Montreal - Boston, NYR-NYI, Calgary - Edmonton, Hawks - Wings or any other division rivalry duke it out in the Finals. That's never completely made sense to me. Why NOT have the potential to have your best rivalry take center stage for all the marbles? Because people nationally won't watch if both teams are from the same region? Baseball seems to debunk that when the Sox and Yanks play.

[Eleven]

hahaha reallly?? Show me one time in the history of this playoff system which is since the 92-93 season in which that happened,,,, I'll wait

 

Do you mean a situation where only one team from a division got in? I know it happened in 2004, and I think it's happened to the Southeast more than just that once.

[dEnnis the Menace]

Do you mean a situation where only one team from a division got in? I know it happened in 2004, and I think it's happened to the Southeast more than just that once.

 

Happened last year: Vancouver was only NW team to get

2009 - 2010 & 2007-2008: Washington only SE team to get in

03-04: Tampa only SE team

01-02: SE only sent one team

98-99: SE only sent one team

 

and then 97 - 98 had the different divisions...

 

it happens, but rarely, and rarely was it ever a division other than the SE that only sent one (talk about a weak division)!

 

Cvanvol, this was not meant to slight you at all, you just made me curious, so I went and looked it up (slow day at work today...slash procrastinating).

[frissonic]

This could be its own thread. Everything you just said makes sense, but two teams is 46 players, only 40 of whom dress for games at a time. Would adding or subtracting 46 players from the league really make that much of a difference? I don't think having a star like Sidney Crosby becomes any more or less important or effective if we add or subtract 46 players.

 

Maybe adding two more teams to get to 32 isn't *that* big a deal. And I do think there are options -- Seattle (natural rivalry with Vancouver), Portland, Houston (4th biggest city in the US), Toronto, Quebec, San Francisco, etc.

 

Just putting this out there. I'm not convinced either way but I've grown skeptical of the accepted "talent dilution" theory.

 

WHY is it that no one considers Salt Lake? We have a world-class facility in the Maverik Center (home to the 2002 Olympic Ice Hockey games and current Grizzlies ECHL team), and completely expandable to accommodate a professional team. Geographically, we make a hell of a lot more sense than any other city mentioned. There is precisely ONE team in the Mountain time zone in the US: Denver.

 

Someone wrote an article about the 6 most logical places to expand the NHL. His list included Portland, Seattle, Boise, Salt Lake, Milwaukee, and Hartford. Of those 6, Boise and Hartford were easy to eliminate: Boise on sheer demographics, and Hartford because they couldn't be bothered to stick with the Whalers. And it's not a Canadian city, which means, the NHL doesn't care if Hartford is re-blessed with a franchise. Seattle and Portland are close to Vancouver, but it just seems like the PNW cares less about sports than the rest of the country. The Supersonics couldn't be kept in Seattle and relocated to Oklahoma ( ...?).

 

Salt Lake has a population that would support an NHL franchise. There's also a lot of local interest in college hockey. Grizz games are generally well attended. There's no reason why Salt Lake shouldn't have a franchise.

[shrader]

Had the league stayed within it's former 2 conference system w/ 2 divisions in each conference, I've long been an advocate for going back to a system similar to what the league did in the early 70's to prevent St. Louis from getting pounded in the Finals EVERY year. Have 4 teams make it into the playoffs from each division and play within division in the 1st round; 2nd round goes to top team in each division w/in the conference playing the other division's lower seeded survivor; and you go cross conference in the 3rd round; with the 2 survivors playing for the Stanley Cup in the Finals.

 

IF the best teams have the best regular season records and there are no upsets (which if they TRULY are the 2 best teams, they shouldn't get upset), then you automatically end up with the 2 best teams in the Finals. Regardless of whether there are upsets or not, you now could have any 2 teams in the entire league meeting up in the Finals.

 

Right now, you can never have Buffalo - Boston, Montreal - Boston, NYR-NYI, Calgary - Edmonton, Hawks - Wings or any other division rivalry duke it out in the Finals. That's never completely made sense to me. Why NOT have the potential to have your best rivalry take center stage for all the marbles? Because people nationally won't watch if both teams are from the same region? Baseball seems to debunk that when the Sox and Yanks play.

 

The problem is that there is no legitimate way to claim which teams are the best in the league. As long as there is no completely balanced schedule, you can't really compare every single team to one another. No system is ever going to be perfect, but I'm completely content with what they're doing here. The teams are divided into a four subsets with nearly identical schedules. The best of each then face each other. If you allow earlier crossover in the playoffs, you are bring in more potential for unbalanced matchups.

 

To me, allowing for earlier crossover goes totally against their new setup. If you're going to make the schedule depend that much on the games within the conference, the playoffs should be the same way. This same system would have been fine 70s too (well with their 2 conferences) if someone hadn't gone with the stupid idea of throwing all the expansion teams into one conference. What exactly did they expect there?

[beerme1]

WHY is it that no one considers Salt Lake? The Supersonics couldn't be kept in Seattle and relocated to Oklahoma ( ...?).

 

I didnt know that until last year and when I heard it on the radio I tought it was a joke. But I am not a bb fan. No offense. Just sayin.

[Taro T]

The problem is that there is no legitimate way to claim which teams are the best in the league. As long as there is no completely balanced schedule, you can't really compare every single team to one another. No system is ever going to be perfect, but I'm completely content with what they're doing here. The teams are divided into a four subsets with nearly identical schedules. The best of each then face each other. If you allow earlier crossover in the playoffs, you are bring in more potential for unbalanced matchups.

 

To me, allowing for earlier crossover goes totally against their new setup. If you're going to make the schedule depend that much on the games within the conference, the playoffs should be the same way. This same system would have been fine 70s too (well with their 2 conferences) if someone hadn't gone with the stupid idea of throwing all the expansion teams into one conference. What exactly did they expect there?

You might, but why would / should that matter?

 

They went to the conference seeding in the playoffs to get away from teams in strong divisions having to duke it out every year while teams in weak ones essentially got passes to the semis. In '90, the Adams had the league's #1, 3, 4, & 7 records (and if you adjust the rankings to how they would have fared in a balanced scheduled league, IIRC the B's slip to #2, Buffalo and the Habs hold their spots and Hartford slips to 10th (I went through the exercise MANY years ago, thus the IIRC) - the Nords did far better against those 4 teams than they did against the rest of the league so having Key-beck in the division didn't skew their results nearly as much as expected).

 

Moe-ray-all's reward for finishing 4th overall was a trip to the #3 overall Sabres and their reward for winning that was playing the #1 overall Bruins. Had they gone intraconference after the 1st round, Moe-ray-all would have had the 9th ranked Strangers and the B's would have had the 13th ranked Caps. And there would have been the outside possibility that arguably the best rivalry in hockey at the time (Moe-ray-all - Baaahstan) could have been for Lord Stanley's Chalice.

[shrader]

You might, but why would / should that matter?

 

They went to the conference seeding in the playoffs to get away from teams in strong divisions having to duke it out every year while teams in weak ones essentially got passes to the semis. In '90, the Adams had the league's #1, 3, 4, & 7 records (and if you adjust the rankings to how they would have fared in a balanced scheduled league, IIRC the B's slip to #2, Buffalo and the Habs hold their spots and Hartford slips to 10th (I went through the exercise MANY years ago, thus the IIRC) - the Nords did far better against those 4 teams than they did against the rest of the league so having Key-beck in the division didn't skew their results nearly as much as expected).

 

Moe-ray-all's reward for finishing 4th overall was a trip to the #3 overall Sabres and their reward for winning that was playing the #1 overall Bruins. Had they gone intraconference after the 1st round, Moe-ray-all would have had the 9th ranked Strangers and the B's would have had the 13th ranked Caps. And there would have been the outside possibility that arguably the best rivalry in hockey at the time (Moe-ray-all - Baaahstan) could have been for Lord Stanley's Chalice.

 

Now what if the crossover forces two of the better teams to face each other earlier than they would have without it? That's just as likely. Nothing's perfect.

[Drunkard]

I like that the first round of the playoffs is guaranteed to be in the division, but I wish they'd keep East/West conference seeding so that the second round has the potential to face a team from the other division in the conference. I'd also prefer for it to stay East and West playing separately for the third round. It's impossible to please everyone though.

[Derrico]

It probably never happened. I'm not going to waste my time researching a hypothetical scenario, but note that every playoff season two divisions in the NHL only produce two playoff teams. And yes I know there is a converse to that.

 

 

This was beside my real point anyway. With the new conferences of seven teams, if you play everyone 6 times that is 36 games. When you play everyone else home and home, that is another 46 games. This leaves another 10 free dates. Will you get to see the other conference's teams like Philly, Pitt, Rangers enough when you factor in the other teams you do not want to see as much like the Isles. With the first two rounds in division you may only see philly-rangers 2 or three times a year.

 

:blink: That's 82 games. They're not changing the numb of games played.

[Taro T]

Now what if the crossover forces two of the better teams to face each other earlier than they would have without it? That's just as likely. Nothing's perfect.

No, because until the finals the higher rated (team with more points) team from one side plays the lower rated team (team with fewer points). If you're the 1st seed and you are now facing a team with a better record than yours, the 1st seed on the other side is higher rated than you are and has earned the right to face the weaker team that you would have been playing.

[shrader]

No, because until the finals the higher rated (team with more points) team from one side plays the lower rated team (team with fewer points). If you're the 1st seed and you are now facing a team with a better record than yours, the 1st seed on the other side is higher rated than you are and has earned the right to face the weaker team that you would have been playing.

 

So we only cross over if/when the standings warrant it? The standings based on an unbalanced schedule where very few direct comparisons can legitimately be made?

[Who Else?]

:blink: That's 82 games. They're not changing the numb of games played.

 

That's the problem. No more games. No more out of conference rivalries.

[Claude_Verret]

Overall I like the new plan, but from a selfish point of view I'll only get to rape, pillage and eat babies once per season here in NC going forward. Also, the only way to meet the Canes in the playoffs from now on would be after the second round, and that doesn't seem too likely given the conference the Canes got saddled with. Meanwhile, Canes fans are absolutely HATING the realignment, they are in there with all the big boys now.

 

http://www.letsgocanes.com/forum/showthread.php?t=11871

 

:lol:

 

I think I'll just go back to being a Flyers fan, since we'll be playing them so often and there are likely to be more of their fans in our building anyway.

 

I hate the argument that if you want the building not to be full of opposing fans then buy the tickets. I DO buy the tickets, but there are only so many of me. WTF am I supposed to do with the other 17,900+ seats?

 

The quickest way to get me to decide that watching hockey from home would be way more fun than pouring more money into this organization is have us losing every night AND the building full of Pens/Rangers/Caps fans.

 

BTW, the Buffalo thing doesn't help me. IMO, Pens and Rangers fans took their title of dubious distinction away a year or so ago.

[Cereal]

Had the league stayed within it's former 2 conference system w/ 2 divisions in each conference, I've long been an advocate for going back to a system similar to what the league did in the early 70's to prevent St. Louis from getting pounded in the Finals EVERY year. Have 4 teams make it into the playoffs from each division and play within division in the 1st round; 2nd round goes to top team in each division w/in the conference playing the other division's lower seeded survivor; and you go cross conference in the 3rd round; with the 2 survivors playing for the Stanley Cup in the Finals.

 

IF the best teams have the best regular season records and there are no upsets (which if they TRULY are the 2 best teams, they shouldn't get upset), then you automatically end up with the 2 best teams in the Finals. Regardless of whether there are upsets or not, you now could have any 2 teams in the entire league meeting up in the Finals.

 

Right now, you can never have Buffalo - Boston, Montreal - Boston, NYR-NYI, Calgary - Edmonton, Hawks - Wings or any other division rivalry duke it out in the Finals. That's never completely made sense to me. Why NOT have the potential to have your best rivalry take center stage for all the marbles? Because people nationally won't watch if both teams are from the same region? Baseball seems to debunk that when the Sox and Yanks play.

I like the idea, Taro. I see two problems with the third round.

 

First, how do they determine who are the higher/lower remaining seeds? e.g., what if the 1st seed in each of the four conferences advance to the third round? Which of the two from the "East" plays which of the two from the "West"?

 

Second, one of the issues some teams (Detroit) had with the playoffs is that they'd play teams three time zones away in the times where the league should have the highest viewer ratings. So, in the third round, you'd have an Eastern v. Western team; not good for viewership. (By the way, whichever way playoffs are run with this new four-conference system, this doesn't solve the Detroit problem.)

 

The problem is that there is no legitimate way to claim which teams are the best in the league. As long as there is no completely balanced schedule, you can't really compare every single team to one another. No system is ever going to be perfect, but I'm completely content with what they're doing here. The teams are divided into a four subsets with nearly identical schedules. The best of each then face each other. If you allow earlier crossover in the playoffs, you are bring in more potential for unbalanced matchups.

 

To me, allowing for earlier crossover goes totally against their new setup. If you're going to make the schedule depend that much on the games within the conference, the playoffs should be the same way. This same system would have been fine 70s too (well with their 2 conferences) if someone hadn't gone with the stupid idea of throwing all the expansion teams into one conference. What exactly did they expect there?

Good point about the new schedules even more dependent on inter-conference games. I think that Taro's proposed playoffs DOES factor that in well, though. Seedings within your conference still really affect who you'll play.

 

You might, but why would / should that matter?

 

They went to the conference seeding in the playoffs to get away from teams in strong divisions having to duke it out every year while teams in weak ones essentially got passes to the semis. In '90, the Adams had the league's #1, 3, 4, & 7 records (and if you adjust the rankings to how they would have fared in a balanced scheduled league, IIRC the B's slip to #2, Buffalo and the Habs hold their spots and Hartford slips to 10th (I went through the exercise MANY years ago, thus the IIRC) - the Nords did far better against those 4 teams than they did against the rest of the league so having Key-beck in the division didn't skew their results nearly as much as expected).

 

Moe-ray-all's reward for finishing 4th overall was a trip to the #3 overall Sabres and their reward for winning that was playing the #1 overall Bruins. Had they gone intraconference after the 1st round, Moe-ray-all would have had the 9th ranked Strangers and the B's would have had the 13th ranked Caps. And there would have been the outside possibility that arguably the best rivalry in hockey at the time (Moe-ray-all - Baaahstan) could have been for Lord Stanley's Chalice.

Haha, nice. Thanks for sharing this.

 

No, because until the finals the higher rated (team with more points) team from one side plays the lower rated team (team with fewer points). If you're the 1st seed and you are now facing a team with a better record than yours, the 1st seed on the other side is higher rated than you are and has earned the right to face the weaker team that you would have been playing.

Still doesn't explain how to choose opponents in the third round? (as I mentioned foremost in this post)

[Who Else?]

_{Why dont they just call them divisions of two conferences. I'll get crazy here and call them East and West. It is the same teams in the current conferences anyway except for Winnipeg. The you can go Crazy with the format. It works in everyother league. It worked until now. I dont like the inter-conference playoff, but if someone feels there needs to be a change then so be it.}

[Derrico]

That's the problem. No more games. No more out of conference rivalries.

 

I just didn't get your 10 free dates comment.

[Who Else?]

I just didn't get your 10 free dates comment.

 

I just meant that outside of the conference and the home and home schedule there will only be 10 games to play extra non conference games. So there is only those ten games to play teams like philly, carolina, new york,etc who we are used to seeing 4 times a year.

[Derrico]

Overall I like the new plan, but from a selfish point of view I'll only get to rape, pillage and eat babies once per season here in NC going forward. Also, the only way to meet the Canes in the playoffs from now on would be after the second round, and that doesn't seem too likely given the conference the Canes got saddled with. Meanwhile, Canes fans are absolutely HATING the realignment, they are in there with all the big boys now.

 

http://www.letsgocan...ead.php?t=11871

 

:lol:

 

Hahahha, in a sick, twisted way, I almost feel sorry for them. Hilarious reading the 'But, looking on the bright side, at least Buffalo isn't in our conference' comment :w00t:

[Derrico]

I just meant that outside of the conference and the home and home schedule there will only be 10 games to play extra non conference games. So there is only those ten games to play teams like philly, carolina, new york,etc who we are used to seeing 4 times a year.

 

I see, I'll miss the out of Conference rivalries as well but they are really few and far between. I posted earlier that I don't know we have a real strong rivalry with any team as it is. By having the first two rounds of the playoffs and having tight playoff races, I think that we will start to hate the teams in our division like we used to hate the Bruins back in the day.

[Taro T]

So we only cross over if/when the standings warrant it? The standings based on an unbalanced schedule where very few direct comparisons can legitimately be made?

No, you cross over each round. For simplicity's sake, let's reseed the 2 teams winning their initial division game as seed 1 & seed 2 for each division (conference, whatever). Then the 2nd round would be:

 

A1-P2

A2-P1

N1-S2

N2-S1

 

The 3rd round would be:

 

AP1-NS2

AP2-NS1

 

And the finals would be:

 

AP-NS.

 

As Cereal mentions, and you may have been alluding to, there can be a legitimate question at the 3rd round as to which is 'truly' the better team coming out of each conference (superdivision, whatever) when the 2 teams with the same rank within their division (conference, whatever) win their game. The league already has tiebreaker and ranking procedures for seeding in the playoffs, I'm sure they could come up with a hierarchy.

 

Only looking at the 1st 'tiebreaker;' the easiest way to rank them is by points (which brings up the question of was the point total skewed by playing in an 'easy' division).

 

If you want to have a bit more complexity, weight out how a team did against the other teams in its grouping and each of the others and then normalize the points/winning percentage to what it would have been under a balanced schedule. For example, let's say teams play twice as many games total against teams within their grouping as they do against each of the other groupings. Then to compare out how teams theoretically would have done w/ a balanced schedule, divide the total points w/in conference (division, whatever) by 2 and add that to the points collected against other conferences (divisions, whatever).

 

You also could look at how the 2 paired conferences (divisions, whatever) performed against each other with the team coming from the conference (division, whatever) with the better record getting the higher seeding.

 

If there are concerns about whether the seedings end up being correct or backwards at the 3rd round, they also could use a 2-3-2 format where the team with the 'extra game' advantage flips to the team that starts on the road in a short series but reverts back to the other if they can get to a 6th game. This format would help alleviate the inevitable travel concerns about having 2 series that may place west coast and east coast teams against each other.

 

Since they are going to 4 conferences instead of 2 conferences each with 2 divisions, you also could rotate which conferences (divisions, whatever) face which in the 2nd round, you could have the eastern conferences always play each other, or you could have the conference with the best interconference record getting top seeding, the 2nd best the next, and so forth.

 

I'd just like to see a way that Buffalo could beat Boston for that elusive 1st Stanley Cup victory. This system would allow that to happen if they both could win 3 rounds. Under the current system, it cannot happen under any circumstance.

[frissonic]

I didnt know that until last year and when I heard it on the radio I tought it was a joke. But I am not a bb fan. No offense. Just sayin.

oh none taken. i can't stand basketball either. i was so elated that the NBA season was in jeopardy cuz that meant i would hear so much less about the jazz.

[shrader]

But you're not crossing over in the 1st round, right? I just don't get it. You have built in all this structure and then suddenly you just throw it all away. I think you're just introducing a way to completely confuse the fans (especially with the idea of weighting things, but I get the feeling you weren't all that committed to that idea). I do like the idea of reseeding to get the most favorable matchups for the teams that earned that right, but deep down, a part of me also enjoys the "anything can happen" aspect of a locked in bracket.

 

It's obviously just an opinion, but I don't see why we need this big rivalry final like you suggest with a Sabres-Bruins or Canadien-Bruins final. It just feels wrong to me. Then again, that thought is easily impacted by the fact that every single sport I pay attention to during my life has always gone the conference vs. conference route for a final, whether it's east/west, AFC/NFC, or AL/NL.