5+5+5+5+5+4=29

Am I the only one that sees that?

Pacific fans, arent you at all concerend that you could end up in the Midwest playoff division for 3 rounds?

Or better yet…..isnt anyone concerned that the reward for best conference record is to go play a team from another division in the first round?

The realignment is fine. The wild card is awful.

I hate this new wild card system.

They should just play within the divison for the first 2 rounds.

The two Florida teams either end up outliers, or you end up bumping one of the Atlantic teams away from their rivalries. Columbus is easy enough to bump out of Atl for TB, but then who do you bump out for the Panthers, Pittsburgh? Rangers?

While it’s not great justification, I can see the idea that doing it this way will attract the snow birds to attend games in TB and Miami.

https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=200576910286370619860.0004d6b5fdd6ebb4c17c6&msa=0&ll=40.245992,-86.748047&spn=46.817487,90.527344

You can’t tell me you’re sick of seeing the Blue Jackets, Nashville, and St. Louis play the Hawks 6 times a year. 4-5 times is enough for healthy rivalries and to let the fan bases feel like they’re not seeing the same team every night.

The hawks would have t make it out to the west coast twice per year, yes. But now the east has to travel out there to every single barn. Levels the playing field a bit.

This levels the playing field in the playoffs and regular season, giving each team a relatively similar amount of travel, much better than what we have now. And it has the likes of Crosby and Ovi go to lesser markets every year. Can’t tell me Phoenix doesn’t need all the help it can get

In a 7 team league/division, Team A plays the other 6 teams, they don’t play themselves.

New math: (6 * 29)/2 = 87.

Scenario:

Midwest:
1. St Louis 110 points
2. Minnesota 108 points
3. Nashville 105 points

Pacific:
1. Los Angeles 109 points
2. San Jose 105 points
3. Anaheim 101 points

Wild cards:
Vancouver 100 points
Chicago 99 points.

Chicago has to go to LA in the first round, while Vancouver goes to St Louis.
Now, assume Chicago and Vancouver win round 1.
Chicago faces winner of San Jose and Anaheim.
Vancouver faces winner of Minnesota vs Nashville.
So Chicago is fighting to win the Pacific playoffs, while Vancouver is fighting to win the Midwest playoffs.
Then the have to face each other if they win.

So Chicago has to play 3 rounds of west coast games, while the two eastern conferences get to take a bus to their “road” games.

And the whole point of realignment was to reduce travel and build division rivalries…currently the Hawks play their division 6 times. under this new scenario, they would only play their division rivals 5 or 4 times. And they could STILL have to head to the west coast twice, which is not an improvement.

Eastern Conference

Atlantic Division
NY Rangers 109
Pittsburgh 108
Philadelphia 103
——————————-
*New Jersey 102
*Washington (42w) 92
Carolina 82
NY Islanders 79
Columbus 65

Atlanta Division has Rangers and Penguins battling each other until the final day of the season trying to get home ice advantage through out the playoffs. Philadelphia and New Jersey also battle it out until the final day of the regular season for the higher seed and playing Pittsburgh or playing Boston. Both wild cards come out of this division. Washington gets the last seed over Ottawa because of the first tie breaker being record (42 wins to 41)

Central Division
Boston (49w) 102
Detroit (48w) 102
Florida 94
————————————-
Ottawa (41w) 92
Buffalo 89
Tampa Bay 84
Toronto 80
Montreal 78

Boston and Detroit play until the final day of the regular season for the division title. Boston wins on tie breaker (49 wins to 48). Florida (f you to everyone who thinks they always have no chance) wins the final guaranteed playoff spot by 2 points. Ottawa misses the playoffs because of the tie breaker.

Eastern Playoffs would be:

NY Rangers vs Washington
Rangers/Washington winner vs Pittsburgh/Philadelphia winner
Pittsburgh vs Philadelphia
Winners above/under meet in East Finals
Boston vs New Jersey
Boston/New Jersey winner vs Detroit/Florida winner
Detroit vs Florida

Western Conference

Mid-West Division
St. Louis 109
Nashville 104
Chicago 101
——————————
Dallas 89
Colorado 88
Winnipeg 84
Minnesota 81

The division is wrapped up before the regular season ends. Only division that ends before the season is finished. However Dallas and Colorado continues to play for the wild card spot until the season ends. No wild card winners here, And, as Minnesota sports tradtions continue, the Wild are a last place team.

Pacific Division
Vancouver 111
Phoenix 97
San Jose 96
———————————
*Los Angeles 95
*Calgary 90
Anaheim 80
Edmonton 74

Phoenix, San Jose, and Los Angeles all play until the final day of the season for home ice in the first round playing each other, and who gets the Wild Card. Calgary has to play until season’s end for the final wild card berth.

The playoffs would look like this:

Vancouver vs Calgary
Vancouver/Calgary winner vs Phoenix/San Jose winner
Phoenix vs San Jose
Winners above and under meet for West Finals
St. Louis vs Los Angeles
St. Louis/Los Angeles winner vs Nashville/Chicago winner
Nashville vs Chicago

No, actually, Chicago would play the first 2 rounds, hypothetically, in their division, then against the other “West” champion, then the Eastern champ.

How do you suppose that the teams in the current Central Conference got the rivalries they currently have? They played each other a ton. …And Weber bashed Zetterberg’s head into the boards, but that’s beside the point as well.

How is two ‘long’ west coast trips any different than they have now? they’d actually play less on the west coast- they’d play everyone at their barn once, and around half of them they’d play twice. that’s less than they’re playing now.

I’m just curious if you truly understand these playoff scenarios. Do you realize that Chicago could end up playing 3 traight playoff rounds against the Pacific teams?

Not to mention, they STILL could have 2 LONG west coast trips in the regular season. Please explain how that helps travel or builds division rivalries.

Those of you who watch Baseball – everyone thought the 1 game play-in was stupid until it was awesome this year.

( i really don’t like baseball, i just have nothing to do over summer )

Columbus, Detroit are in the Eastern time zone. Yet they’re constantly flying out to the West Coast 3-4 times a year.

It’s all about eliminating travel times from coast to coast, and maybe a little bit of helping smaller market teams get more publicity and opportunity to get better. 4 Teams from the pacific coast keeps the California/Phoenix teams and markets attached to their teams with a high likleyhood of playoffs every year
Atlantic Division helps Columbus not have to travel, gets them money with bigger markets.

Only teams that really have room to complain are Nashville and maybe St. Loius, because of location and travel too, Chicago because they’re losing the matchup against Detroit, and the Florida squads because Florida is freaking far from pretty much any other team

Other teams around us have gotten better while we’ve been rebuilding and making the playoffs.

I’m not worried about the Wings in the East, i’m looking forward to not having to stay up til 1 for games to be over