Also they will have to do this over again once Phoenix moves next year.

not necessarily, when phoenix moves to quebec they could easily be plugged into the atlantic. then the northwest is at 7, and atlantic becomes an 8 team conference. it'd actually be a real easy fix.


also, then you have a canadian team in every conference. not too bad.

Yuck, I absolutely hate it.

Would've just made sense to send Nashville to the SE, Winnepeg to the NW and Minnesota to the Central. But no, they have to make this shit.

Quebec doesn't have an arena that is up to NHL standards.

I don't understand why they didn't just put swap Winnipeg and Nashville...it would keep things the simple and keep them the same. And it would make sense geographically too.

I don't understand why they didn't just put swap Winnipeg and Nashville...it would keep things the simple and keep them the same. And it would make sense geographically too.

well, where else would you expect phoenix to move to? also, aren't they working on redoing the arena so that is up to nhl standards, or was that only talked about and not actually decided?

I don't like it because of the playoff format. Each team will have divisional playoffs to decide a division/conference winner and the four winners will battle for the Stanley cup. That's bullshit in my opinion.

First of all if you're in a weak conference your chances are way higher to get to the final four especially if you're in a 7 team conference.
Secondly fans will only be interested in the games of conference rivals. Right now Sabres fans are interested in almost every game with an eastern team because it affects their playoff spot. After the realignment you only have to worry about the teams in your conference. It doesn't matter what the other teams do.

The NHL has been amazingly vague about specifics (which may be a good thing), but the AHL has unbalanced divisions, and if a #5 team in one division has a better record than the #4 team in another division, the #5 team gets in. There was a good post earlier pointing out that this happened in the NHL in 1995.

ok, here it is. using a divisional playoff system, 1-4 make it. if the 5th place team is better than a 4th place team in another division, tough shit. prior to 1994, the NHL used a divisional format. (i believe 1994 was the first year of the conference format) from 1994-2012, divisional standings meant nothing outside of the division winners. the AHL used divisional playoffs till 2011 i believe, when they just went conference playoffs. but it may have been 2010.

you will see more 1-2 seeds fall because of parity.