NHL Realignment Talk

The below is from a collection of tweets by Bob McKenzie regarding NHL realignment.

“Remember, neither NHLPA nor NHL B of G have agreed to this yet. It’s still just a proposal. Top 3 teams in each of two 8-team East conferences make the playoffs. Two wild cards from remaining 10 East teams also make the playoffs. Top 3 teams in each of two 7-team West conferences make playoffs. Two wild cards from remaining 8 West teams also make the playoffs. Playoff format remains old divisional style, 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3 though it remains to be seen how the wild cards are slotted for first-round. I assume schedule matrix stays same as Dec/2011 proposal. Clubs in 7-team conf play 6×6 in conf (36), and home-and-away with other 23 (46). 8-team conferences also play home-and-away with 22 out of conf teams (44) but play either 5 or 6 games vs. conference rivals (38).

As for realignment, recognizing nothing is final yet, someone is going to have to explain the following to me regarding the playoff format: How’s having 2 wild card teams out of 10 in the East and 2 WC teams out of 8 in the West any different than previous inequity of 4/7 vs. 4/8. With such imbalanced in-conference sked, I’d much rather prefer keeping it 1 vs. 4, 2 vs. 3 within each conference. But that’s just me. This proposed realignment addresses two primary concerns: better travel for most teams/every team playing home and away against every team. In 30 team league, though, no way around so-called “inequity” of playoff format unless you sacrifice travel benefits in the first round.”

Pierre LeBrun via twitter:”According to NHL memo sent to 30 teams, no longer is the idea to go to 4 conferences, but rather 2 conferences with two divisions each”

Proposed conferences/divisions:

In December of 2011, the NHL had come up with the below realignment plan, but the NHLPA did not approve of it.