New Re-Alignment Proposal

[Boss AZ]

NHL, One step forward. Two steps back.

[wr50l]

Well ... switching Winnipeg and Detroit would have been a pretty shitty band-aid so they had to do something.

[1ke]

Fro strictly the Blackhawks point of view. I don't mind this too much.

[leaffan]

The pluses are basically everyone is in their right time zones which means good things for teams like dallas, chicago and peg. Dallas especially found that when games were played 1 hour later their viewership ratings dropped almost as high as 60% so their happy.

Florida and Tampa will gain more revenue based on the fact they will have the most popular fan bases with them in the NE division. On the flip side they are forced to either start spending money or get smarter (moneypuck) players to compete with the big spenders. Dunno if the gains they'll get will be enough.

Everyone will play in another teams arena at least once a season. Meaning the crobsy show can hit every market every year. Also means I have the chance to troll every fan base on hfboards every year now


Minuses include the florida/tampa spending issue.
16 teams trying to make 8 spots while 14 teams go for the same number in the other conference hardly seems fair. Could be a disadvantage at Free Agency time and also revenue.

[Ravin]

Am I the only one who doesn't see the playoff system a big deal and I think teams are making a big deal of it. At the end of the day only 8 teams make the playoffs on each side, and it doesn't matter if there is 14 teams or 140 teams, it is still the top 8. So what if one division has one less and one division has one more.

I can see where people will say "well what if one team in the east could have made the playoffs had they been in the west". You have to go back to 2010-11 where Dallas had 95 points and Calgary had 94 points and would have made the playoffs over 8th seed New York with 93 points. But that is on the west side coming east, so no issue there.

I just don't see it being that big of a deal to be honest. In order to make all the teams happy, this is how it had to be. It will only last a season anyway till people figure out a new system.

[wr50l]

Surely though the most rational solution was for Dallas to move South East, Colorado into the Pacific, and Winnipeg into the North West, then just lighten up the playoff schedule tempo so that the more Eastern-based Western Conference teams didn't have to play on such road-weary legs?