Realignment Ideas

So the season is now underway the Winnipeg Jets have officially been repatriated and they have played their first games as the Jets again.  It may seem early to begin this discussion but there isn’t that much time between now and the next Board of Governors meeting in December.  One of the hot topics will undoubtedly revolve around realignment.  If I were on the BOG I would be calling in the mathematicians, lawyers, travel agents, and player reps because it is going to be a contentious and complicated issue and it has to be dealt with this year.

As of now the Winnipeg Jets are playing in the Southeast Division of the Eastern Conference this was the Band-Aid solution for this year because there was simply no time to do realignment.  Realignment banter has been kicked around for ages but this is the year something will finally be done.  All the discussion about realignment has produced many, many ideas about what the league should look like from next year on.  Overall a large portion of the NHL community seems to believe the best bet is to keep the current system intact and swap teams among divisions.

Currently there are 4 Western teams that could be Eastern teams: Chicago, Detroit, Columbus, and Nashville, and of those 4 Chicago will be staying assuming the current six divisions of five teams and two conferences is kept intact.  It is widely believed and in some cases confirmed that the other 3 would all like to go to the East.  Assuming the current system is left in place that means 3 teams are competing for one Eastern spot.  There are universal arguments between each market like the problem of travel time and lack of local TV audience for road games because of time zone difference.

Then there are arguments for each market.  Detroit is the class of hockey; they play extremely close to other Eastern teams like Buffalo, Toronto, and Boston and feel they deserve a spot in the East.  Speculation out of Columbus is they are losing a lot of money and feel they need to be in the East to have a legitimate shot at survival in the long term.  The logic behind that being they need a better TV audience and less travel and the only way to do that is by being time zone competitive with other division rivals.  A very similar argument can be made for Nashville as well.  The difference with Nashville is they are the closest to the Southeast division and could easily assume the Atlanta/Winnipeg spot.  If it were Detroit or Columbus there would either be an odd geographic difference or there would be a need for further division shake-up in the East.

Now once you pick a team to shift East you have to figure out where the hell to put the Jets.  Logic dictates Central because there will be a missing team.  So we now arrive at the conclusion the simplest scenario is taking Nashville to the Southeast and Winnipeg in their spot in the Central.  However that solution might be the easiest from the current situation but there are several flaws.  First of all based on the current model there are serious geographical problems for multiple teams.  Many of the Central teams are not time zone competitive especially when they play teams on Pacific Time and they face gruelling travel especially in the playoffs.  Dallas is separated by great distance from their nearest competition and Minnesota could be stuck in a division with 4 Canadian teams.  Then there is the wide travel discrepancy that Western teams face compared to Eastern teams.

So if you are now pressing the WTF button fear not there is another option that has been suggested by others and I actually like it a lot.  Break the league into 4 divisions instead of six.  You could keep two conferences but have 4 divisions.  There would be 2 divisions of eight and two divisions of seven.  Now the common thought is that you would construct the divisions based on time zone.  This would allow you to solve the problem of time zones, travel distance, and it would make all teams face similar travel patterns.  Plus it would make for less travel in the playoffs and it would be great at building rivalries because the top four teams in each division could make the playoffs.  (Still making for eight in each conference.) The initial rounds of the post season would be division based the conference finals would pit the two division champs against each other and then of course the Stanley Cup Final.  The composition of the regular season is debatable in this type of system but the NHL could use one that would ensure every team gets to play each other at least twice.

This is a topic that usually generates lots of opinion and this is just one of the many ideas floating around out there but it is certainly one that could provide a great system to use and it give teams a better chance at being economically viable plus it would be great for hockey.