

Next year’s NHL Eastern conference will have 16 teams competing for 8 playoff spots while the West will have only 14 teams also competing for 8 playoff spots. Mathematically, each team in the West has a 7% better chance of making the playoffs than teams in the East. That is ASININE. You know who does that? BASEBALL. MLB did that for years with unbalanced leagues. Baseball did that because they are stupid and awful and they hate the fans. They finally fixed it by moving the woeful Houston Astros to the American League this year (essentially crippling the Pirates chances at ever having a winning season ever again). Why would the NHL do something so stupid? Time zones. They claim that the new alignment allows for less time zone conflicts and cheaper travel costs. For example, as it stands now, Dallas is in the central time zone, but has to compete with four other teams in the Pacific division which are all in the Pacific time zone. As I’ll illustrate below, there is a better way to fix this and still keep each conference with 15 teams apiece.



Another major issue with the re-alignment is that the Detroit Red Wings, one of the original six and a team that has been in the Western Conference since 1974, is being moved to the East. They will no longer share a division with rivals Chicago (also an original six team) and St. Louis. The young Nashville Predators, who beat the Red Wings in the first round last season, are denied a chance to establish a rivalry with the storied Detroit franchise. (By the way, Nashville has the best home uniforms in all of sports. If I was twelve, they would be my favorite team because of those jerseys.) Columbus and Winnipeg are also switching conferences, but that is not as big a deal for them as they aren’t as established as the Red Wings. Some might argue that it will be nice to see the Red Wings play teams like the Penguins and the Bruins more often, but with the new re-alignment the NHL has pledged to have more inter-conference games, so that was going to happen anyway.

Here are the new Divisions:

West

A. Anaheim, Calgary, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose and Vancouver

B. Chicago, Colorado, Dallas, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis and Winnipeg

East

C. Boston, Buffalo, Detroit, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa, Tampa and Toronto

D. Carolina, Columbus, New Jersey, Rangers, Islanders, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington

The top 3 teams in each division make the playoffs and then there are 2 wildcards in each conference. Notice the discrepancy with the East having TWO MORE TEAMS THAN THE WEST.

This is my proposal and it would have made much more sense:

West

A. Anaheim, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose and Colorado

B. Calgary, Edmonton, Vancouver, Winnipeg and Minnesota (Most Minnesotans think they’re Canadian anyway.)

C. Chicago, Detroit, Nashville, St. Louis and Dallas

East

D. Boston, Buffalo, Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto

E. New Jersey, Rangers, Islanders, Philadelphia and Pittsburgh

F. Florida, Tampa, Carolina, Washington and Columbus

Each division winner and 5 wildcard teams in each conference make the playoffs and are seeded 1 thru 8 based on total points regardless of division standing. So the winner of division F could actually be the 8th seed if they have the 8th most points among playoff teams in the East.

My proposal only involves Winnipeg and Columbus switching conferences and Dallas and Colorado switching divisions. These moves would solve a lot of the time zone and travel issues, while not being nearly as drastic as the NHL’s actual changes. It also keeps the number of teams in each conference at 15 apiece. My proposal is so much better and it only took me about 10 minutes to figure it out. FUCK YOU BETTMAN YOU DUMB GOOCH. The only way the NHL’s plan would make sense is if they contracted and got rid of Columbus and Florida, but that would never happen. That would leave them with 4 divisions of 7 teams each and they could have the top 4 in each division make the playoffs. That would be nice and tidy. Their actual plan is anything but.

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