Jon Sayer

My Idea for NHL Realignment: be prepared for more moves

I have a confession to make. I like hockey.

This doesn't make any sense if you know me. I don't have many/any friends who do like hockey, and I'm not athletic. I don't even like any other sport. That said, as a man with Canadian heritage, I've been around hockey the fandom of hockey all of my life, even if going to an NHL game or regularly watching a specific team on TV was something I could rarely do.

So when I follow hockey, I do so through newspapers and the Internet. One story that I have been following closely is divisional realignment as a result of the relocation of the Atlanta Thrashers to Winnipeg.

There have been hundreds if not thousands of ideas spread around the internet regarding realignment of the NHL as a result of this event, all of them flawed and full of potholes that would prevent them from being easy sells in the real NHL.

I'm not going to go over every plan here (there are too many!), but I will say that they all seem to ignore the elephant in the room, namely that there will be another move in the next few years. It will probably be the Phoenix Coyotes, but it could also be any number of other teams.

A key problem is that any realignment which preserves the current six-division format will could be broken by these future moves because they will require key rivalries (think Montreal-Boston or the NYC trio) to be broken up.

Where are the risks?

NHL Teams in trouble
Mountain time zone	Central time zone	Eastern time zone
Phoenix Coyotes	Dallas Stars	Columbus Blue Jackets
---	---	New York Islanders
---	---	Florida Panthers

All of the teams in the chart above have been mentioned in the hockey media as teams that might potentially move. They all have bankruptcy, arena, or attendance issues, or in the case of the Coyotes, all of the above. I'm not saying these teams will leave. I'm saying they might.

Any realignment must take into consideration that one or more of these teams could disappear. It should also consider where these teams are most likely to end up.

Potential relocation sites
Likeliness IMHO, based on market and arena availability, is indicated by number of *stars*
Pacific time	Mountain time	Central time	Eastern time
Portland ***	Las Vegas *	Kansas City ****	Quebec *****
Seattle *	---	Milwaukee ***	Toronto (Markham) **
---	---	Houston **	Hamilton, ON *
---	---	---	Hartford *

As a hockey fan in NHL-less Seattle, I've been thinking about where an NHL team might move for a long time. I've done some research and I have good reasons for these assumptions, but I don't feel like outlining all of them right now. I will say this: all of these cities have been mentioned in the media in the past.

You'll notice that the most stars are in the Northeast or American Midwest. You'll also notice that none of the in-trouble teams are in the Northeast, and fewer are in the West. This means we're most likely to have a flow of teams northward and westward.

So here's my solution for next season:

Western Conference		Eastern Conference
Pacific Division	Central Division	Northeast Division	Southeast Division
Anaheim	Chicago	Boston	Buffalo
Calgary	Dallas *	Montreal	Carolina
Colorado	Detroit	New Jersey	Columbus *
Edmonton	Minnesota	New York I *	Florida *
Los Angeles	Nashville	New York R	Pittsburgh
Phoenix *	St. Louis	Ottawa	Philadelphia
San Jose	Winnipeg	Toronto	Tampa Bay
Vancouver	---	---	Washington

First, we go back to the old-fashioned four division system the NHL had for a generation. Teams are placed with other teams in their time zone to minimize late-night TV watching and travel. There are 7 or 8 teams in each division.

The most likely scenario requiring a realignment is a team moving into the Northeast or Central divisions, so I made these two divisions short one team so no one else gets bumped. A swap between conferences would require another move, but there are options available to us, especially in westward moves.

As far as I can tell, the most important rivalries in the NHL are all preserved. You can keep Buffalo in the Northeast if you would like, but they will be moved into the Southeast as soon as the Nordiques are reborn. Same with Detroit: you could send them to the Northeast and keep Columbus in the Central Division, but they will likely have to move back or force another team to leave the Northeast as the Central and Northeast fill up.

Teams would play 42 games within their division, either 6 or 7 with each team. They would play a home-and-home with all remaining teams in their conference (14 or 16 games) and one game with teams in the opposite conference (15 games). The remaining 9 or 11 games would be with specific opponents outside their division, consisting of historic rivals and recent playoff opponents.

Due to the way this is set up, there's a natural spot for expansion teams to go if the NHL ever wants to go that way.

Let me explain the various underlines and other nonsense in that chart.

Teams with a star * just might leave their towns for greener pastures. They are liabilities for future realignment.

An underlined team can't leave the division they are in (unless they just leave town altogether). This team is locked into the division it is in by sheer geography. Most of them, like most of the entire current Northeast division, have very tight rivalries that simply can't be replaced if they were to be moved. They often have another team in the same state, region, or province.

Italicized teams are a set. They can be moved around, but not without their partner teams. If we move the Rangers, the Islanders and the Devils have to come. If we need to move one team from the Northeast to the Southeast, sort of a worst-case scenario, the only possibility is to swap the NYC trio with the Pennsylvania pair. It's not perfect, but it works.

However, it's possible we might see a flood of teams moving into one division. If that happens, we're going to need to screw with things. Teams will leave their divisions and swap conferences in the order listed in this graph.

Western Conference		Eastern Conference
Pacific Division	Central Division	Northeast Division	Southeast Division
Colorado 1>	Winnipeg 1<	New Jersey 1>	Pittsburgh (NYC swap)
Phoenix 2>	Minnesota 2<	New York I 1>	Philadelphia (NYC swap)
	Detroit 1> (NE)	New York R 1>
	Nashville 2> (SE)		Buffalo <1 (NE)
	Winnipeg 3> (NE)		Columbus (Central) <1

If a move results in a division having more than eight teams, these teams would bite the bullet (or swim in happiness) and move in the order listed. The arrows indicate where they would go.

On the next page, I have a few scenarios to illustrate what I mean. Each are major disruptions, but in each the core of each division is preserved.

I Wish I Was Northwestward Bound

This is wet dream for me. It's also one of the most complicated situations I can think of, requiring each division to be changed.

Columbus and Florida are screwed. They need to move. Together, they move to Seattle and Portland, finally bringing the NHL to the Pacific Northwest and instantly create a massive rivalry with each other and the Vancouver Canucks.

The Pacific Division suddenly has too many teams, so both Colorado and Phoenix move to the Central Division. Now the Central division has one too many teams, plus the whole Western conference has two too many. Both Detroit and Nashville move to the Eastern conference, Detroit with its old Original Six rivals in the Northeast and Nashville with its fellow southern teams.

Western Conference		Eastern Conference
Pacific Division	Central Division	Northeast Division	Southeast Division
Anaheim	Chicago	Boston	Buffalo
Calgary	Colorado	Detroit	Carolina
Edmonton	Dallas	Montreal	Nashville
Los Angeles	Minnesota	New Jersey	Pittsburgh
Portland	Phoenix	New York I	Philadelphia
San Jose	St. Louis	New York R	Tampa Bay
Seattle	Winnipeg	Ottawa	Washington
Vancouver	---	Toronto	---

Middle America mania

The owners of the Islanders, Phoenix and Columbus have had it, and they're gravitating towards the center of North America: Milwaukee, Kansas City, and Houston. Suddenly, there are too many teams in the Central Division.

This is an opportunity. For the first time in NHL history, we have more teams out of the Eastern Time Zone than in it. We send Detroit and Nashville to divisions they will fit well in and a time zone they prefer.

Western Conference		Eastern Conference
Pacific Division	Central Division	Northeast Division	Southeast Division
Anaheim	Chicago	Boston	Buffalo
Calgary	Dallas	Detroit	Carolina
Colorado	Houston	Montreal	Nashville
Edmonton	Kansas City	New Jersey	Florida
Los Angeles	Milwaukee	New York R	Pittsburgh
San Jose	Minnesota	Ottawa	Philadelphia
Vancouver	St. Louis	Toronto	Tampa Bay
---	Winnipeg	---	Washington

Return to the abandoned markets

Phoenix and Dallas--two teams that left snowy lands for the sunbelt back in the '90s--are moving. Meanwhile, the New York Islanders also find that they can no longer survive in the NYC area. Brooklyn, Queens, and Nassau aren't working out.

So these three teams decide to move to markets that had their teams taken away in the past: Kansas City, Hartford, and Quebec.

The Islanders go to Quebec, so they stay in the same division and trade NYC rivals for the Canadiens. Rangers fans can still chant "Potvin Sucks" three games a year. Everyone's happy (except Islanders fans). Dallas goes to Kansas City and again nothing changes division-wise.

But Phoenix moves to Hartford, and the Northeast is now saturated with teams. Since there was extra space in the Northeast, no one else has to move... except Columbus, which returns to the Central division to even out the conferences.

Western Conference		Eastern Conference
Pacific Division	Central Division	Northeast Division	Southeast Division
Anaheim	Columbus	Boston	Buffalo
Calgary	Chicago	Hartford	Carolina
Colorado	Detroit	New Jersey	Florida
Edmonton	Kansas City	New York R	Pittsburgh
Los Angeles	Minnesota	Montreal	Philadelphia
San Jose	Nashville	Ottawa	Tampa Bay
Vancouver	St. Louis	Quebec	Washington
---	Winnipeg	Toronto	---

Everyone go to Canada!

The following scenario illustrates a possible problem: what if we see a flood of teams to Canada? This is where my system begins to break down. There aren't any teams that want to go West, and most spots for moving to Canada are in the East.

Phoenix, Florida, and Dallas have all decided that the place to make money is north of the border, moving to Quebec, Hamilton, and new arena in Markham, Ontario, north of Toronto. Meanwhile, Columbus and the New York Islanders get the same idea, only they want to go to the marginal markets of Halifax and Saskatoon. Not that this makes a lick of sense, but they're doing it.

Halifax, Hamilton, and Quebec are all in the Northeast, so we send the remaining NYC teams to the Southeast. We don't have to swap them with the Pennsylvania teams. Boston finds itself in an all-Canadian division, unless we send Buffalo too to and make it a little less awkward for them. Google Maps engineers notice an uptick of queries for "where the fuck is Saskatoon" in the midwestern United States.

Unfortunately, we are left with an imbalance. The new Toronto team belongs in the East with the rest of the Canadian teams, but it's going to have to stay in the West or make the conferences uneven. They're on the bottom of the totem pole right now, and they've ruined my neat and orderly arrangement, so they'll just have to bite the bullet.

In any case, there are now twelve Canadian teams in a league of thirty.

Western Conference		Eastern Conference
Pacific Division	Central Division	Northeast Division	Southeast Division
Anaheim	Chicago	Boston	Buffalo
Calgary	Detroit	Halifax	Carolina
Colorado	Minnesota	Hamilton	New Jersey
Edmonton	Nashville	Montreal	New York R
Los Angeles	Saskatoon	Ottawa	Pittsburgh
San Jose	St. Louis	Quebec	Philadelphia
Vancouver	Toronto (new)	Toronto ML	Tampa Bay
---	Winnipeg	---	Washington