Gorilla Crouch

The Canadian Press is reporting that NHL executives are considering putting a proposal together to realign the current conference setup. The goal seems to be to come up with a solution for the problem with the way the league currently schedules division games.

The massive overhaul, which features the Atlanta Thrashers and Columbus Blue Jackets switching conferences, was discussed Wednesday in New York when governors representing all six divisions met with commissioner Gary Bettman to try and find a solution to the ongoing schedule conflict.

Many people have complained about a schedule that includes too many games against division opponents and not enough against teams from the opposing conference. Here is how the conferences would look according to the Canadian Press article.

I think this is a move in the right direction. From a Red Wings perspective the team plays too many games against Chicago and St. Louis, two franchises that have been great rivals over the years but have struggled of late. So adding Dallas and Atlanta makes the division more interesting. The addition of Minnesota is a nod to the old Norris Division days when the North Stars were in the division. But this division is lacking one big team that would make it a really great division: Toronto.

In short I think the way the NHL is looking at laying out the divisions could be problematic as two divisions will have 7 teams and the other two will have 8. I would think that makes balancing the schedule even more difficult, not less. With that in mind, I would like to see a re-alignment that takes into consideration the old divisions from the 1980s. Here is what I think would work:

The way I look at it is that having 6 divisions isn’t a problem. Dividing the league up into four divisions doesn’t guarantee that you will solve the schedule problems and it could in fact create new problems. The one obvious benefit to going with the new four division format is to create more compelling matchups. While I don’t go that far back in terms of following hockey, I have been a fan since the mid 1980s and I think you would have much better matchups based on the history that was built up during that time period. This was also mentioned in the Canadian Press article where it was suggested there was some interest in putting Washington back into its old Patrick Division group.

So my question is why not do that across the board? Four of your six divisions can be very similar to the old divisions from back in the 1980s. There are some things that don’t work out perfectly. Winnipeg is now in Phoenix, so I placed the ‘Yotes in the Smythe. I pulled one New York team out of the Patrick/Atlantic, but gave them a spot in the Adams/Northeast. Your last two Stanley Cup champs represent the new school in the Dirty South division, or the Southeast if you prefer. They can even come up with a hockey name to repesent the division, maybe the Davidson or the Karmanos Division.

As far as scheduling goes, reduce the number of division games per opponent to 5 for tie-breaking purposes. That way if two teams finish with the exact same point total you have a good tie-breaker to award one team the division title or a higher seed when it comes to the playoffs. So that takes up 20 games, close to 25% of the schedule. As far as the rest of the conference goes, play 3 games against every other conference team that is outside of your division. That would take up 30 games so that accounts for 50 games on the schedule. In this scenario you could also play two games against every team in the opposing conference, with each team hosting a game in that scenario.

So that gets you up to 80 games. What about those last two? In the Big Ten conference each football team has a protected rivalry which means the team plays a particular opponent every single year. So while the University of Illinois and Purdue University didn’t play the University of Michigan this year, Ohio State University and Michigan State University did. What this protected rivalry does is guarantee you play a particular rival every year. I’d like to see the NHL adopt something along those lines.

In the NHL schedule I am suggesting this isn’t as much of a concern as each NHL team would play every other team at least twice during the season, but I still like the concept of having two extra games against a particular opponent. It would be ideal if it were outside of the conference or the division but that isn’t a huge concern. For the Red Wings the opponent could be Toronto or Montreal or Colorado. The idea is these franchises should have some sort of history between them that gets each team as well as the fans excited for the game.

I think these two suggestions would go a long way towards solving the current scheduling dilemma by creating much more compelling matchups throughout the season.

NHL Divisions NHL Schedule Red Wings

December 23rd, 2006
Categories: Red Wings . Author: Dave

No Comments

No comments yet.

Comments RSS TrackBack Identifier URI

Leave a comment

Name (required)

Mail (will not be published) (required)

Website

Anti-spam word: (Required)*
To prove you're a person (not a spam script), type the security word shown in the picture.