http://i.tsn.ca/nhl/story/?id=382065

Kind of weird the panthers and Lightning are now in the northeast.

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

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.

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

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

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.

EDIT: thinking about it, i actually wonder if the board intentionally left both east coast conferences with only 7 teams so that they could easily plug in a team like phoenix if they do end up moving.

and I think it benefits the Sabres.. The Sabres are in a conference with 7 teams, instead of 8.. That means we have to just beat out 3 other teams in our conference to make the playoffs(and the Panthers will be almost automatically in the bottom 3 every year).. This whole realignment is great when it come to division rivalries.. Now, playing our division(conference) rivals will be a lot more important than in the past.. Should be more like the NFL in that respect..

http://www.nhl.com/ice/news.htm?id=604852

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Miller, Myers and Greir are sick, but not Jesus Christ..

KILL OTTAWA

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

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

And they also want to screw around with the playoffs which would suck. Why can't they just leave the playoffs alone?? It's working fine right now.

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

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 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.

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"Ah...composite sticks...you can't beat 'em...unless you have a wooden one..."-Harry Neale

In Pegula We We Trust!

I hate the idea of divisional playoffs. What happens when your division, like the atlantic, has a team that has 98 points miss the playoffs and a team in the northeast with 80 points make it??

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

Maybe they have been thinking of making the conferences like this for a while and it does say that this helps western teams with the travel..

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Miller, Myers and Greir are sick, but not Jesus Christ..

KILL OTTAWA

Make sense are the two word that are not apart of Bettmans and the NH's vocabulary.

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

From what i have read Quebec desperately wants a team but they dont have anyone who actually wants to put his/her own money into renovating/building an arena. They want the governament to fork over money to get an are a built .

With all that said I expect Kanas or Toronto/Markham get a team before Quebec does

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just call me Brad

Twitter @BUrbanowicz13

I feel this realignment makes things more unfair. The fact that the divisions are uneven really bothers me even though it benefits the Sabres in theory.

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.

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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.

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This time, like all times, is a very good one, if we but know what to do with it.
--Emerson

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.

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Daly was pretty specfic about it but I guess nothing's for sure yet.

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Why are the Florida teams in our conference? They're a lot closer geographically to the other eastern conference than they are ours. Why not have the New York or Pennsylvania teams in ours...

This new alignment is all sortsa fucked up

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"Hokey religions and ancient weapons are no match for a good blaster at your side, kid." ~ Han Solo


We truly are not worthy of Miller!

This tells us that either the league is contracting or expanding soon.

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Girgensons for captain. Team Keep Nick DesLauriers forever.

@TJLuckman550