12/07/2011

NHL approves new conference realignment format

NHL approves new conference realignment format

Thoughts?
Personally I'd like to see a wild card after the top three teams in each new conference rather than simply the top four qualifying...

2 comments:

Moriarty said...

the wild card idea is interesting...

Douglas McLachlan said...

I have a modified wild-card proposal as follow:

Top four teams per conference seeded 1-4 in each conference - as the Count suggests.

Any 4th seed with less pts than any otherwise non-playoff team would host a one-game wild-card play-in game against the top ranked non-playoff team (regardless of conference). If more than one 4th seeds then there may be up to three of these games (ie #4 in the Smythe vs #5 in the Adams; #4 in the Norris vs #6 in the Adams; #4 in the Patrick vs #7 in the Adams - assuming that teams 5-7 in the Adams have more pts than the #4 in all three other conferences).

Should a 5th or subsequent placed team from another conference win their way into a conference's playoff bracket - the top team can select to play the #3-ranked team instead.

Finishing 4th in a conference gives you a minimum one guaranteed playoff game (the Wild-card) and the players get the potential for more revenue to be divided.

Wild-cards would not come into play every year but were the proposed conferences to be in place right now (typing as of the afternoon of Dec 6th) things would be as follows:

Adams
Boston 35
Florida 34
Toronto 33
Buffalo 29
---
Ottawa 29
Montral 28
Tampa Bay 24

Patrick
Pittsburg 36
NY Rangers 33
Philadelphia 33
Washington 27*
---
New Jersey 27
NY Islanders 23
Carolina 20

Norris
Minnesota 39
Chicago 36
Detroit 33
St. Louis 33
---
Dallas 31*
Nashville 28
Winnepeg 20
Columbus 19

Smythe
Vancouver 33
Phoenix 33
Los Angeles 30
San Jose 29
---
Edmonton 29
Colorado 27
Calgary 26
Anaheim 21

Washington hosts Dallas in Wild-Card. If Dallas wins, Pittsburg has option to play Philadelphia in first round.