Anyways, before I go on my rant, here's another concept I drew today. It's for the Cincinnati Stingers from the old WHA days. Not sure why I decided to do this one, but I just liked the logo and thought I'd have some fun with it. Thoughts?
Anyways, back to today's topic. I wasn't sure on what to write about today, but yesterday during my predictions post, I was intrigued by all of the new divisional match-ups, and I thought maybe my thoughts on the new alignment. Of course this was a controversial subject to begin with, so hopefully this will generate some discussion even after it's said and done.
Here, of course, is the division map that was agreed upon by the NHL. The biggest difference is that the league will be reduced to 4 divisions instead of 6. Right there is a huge problem, 30 teams doesn't divide into 4 well. There spewed up the argument of unfair playoff chances between divisions. The NHL implemented a "wildcard" rule to somewhat counter that, but it's still a bit awkward to have 2 divisions with 7 teams, and 2 divisions with 8 teams.
I would argue that the only sure way to combat this is expansion or contraction of the league. I like the thought of expansion, the league is par enough throughout that the talent can still spread evenly around 2 more teams, and would probably help keep the salary cap down in the long run. However, contracting the league by 2 teams isn't a terrible idea either, as there are several teams that aren't exactly helping the league's financial books.
But either way, we had to divide up the divisions somehow for now, and this is what we got. After all of the bickering between some of the midwest teams, I personally like most aspects of this setup. Teams wont have to travel past more than 1 timezone for most of their games, and can stay in their own for most of their divisional games. This helps teams like Colorado, Dallas, and Winnipeg tremendously.
The biggest quirk on the divisional map to me is the Northwest + Florida division. The other 6 teams surely fit together in the same division, and while we lose the Chicago-Detroit rivalry, Detroit renews 3 of it's Original 6 rivalries, and is now in the Eastern Conference like it wanted. The Florida teams are a bit awkward, but it wasn't accidental why they're there. They can play many road games back to back with the closeness of the cities up north, plus many Floridans watching hockey are retirees from Canada watching their old favourite teams, plus traditionally Toronto, Montreal, Boston and Detroit are good draws for road teams, and help boost the attendance. Its not a well kept secret that these teams (mostly Florida) need help financially, so this was an easy fix. Plus it would be extremely hard breaking the Atlantic division by more than one team.
Geographically, it could make sense to put Columbus and Pittsburgh in the Northeast and put the Florida teams in the Atlantic, but separating the two Pennsylvania teams would be disastrous for the league. The Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Flyers, and Capitals are too close together to separate, and since you can't split up Pittsburgh and Philadelphia, the Penguins would have to stay too. That really only leaves Carolina and Columbus to move. Carolina would much prefer to stay in the Atlantic, even though they are closer to the Florida teams, the shorter travel overall and the good draws from every other team in the division would surely help them more. That leaves only Columbus. Theoretically, one could put Columbus in with Detroit in the Northeast, and put Boston in the Atlantic. Columbus would have to travel further, but would keep rival Detroit in the division, as well as constantly getting teams like Toronto and Montreal in your building, which would be a huge profit boost. Geographically this could make sense for Boston too, they would get out of having to travel to Florida for division games, wouldn't have to cross the border for 3 divisional teams, and would have slightly less travel if they were in the Atlantic, but keeping rivals like Toronto and Montreal in your division is good for the Bruins, and on-ice they would have a better chance of being a playoff team in that division than if they defected to the Atlantic. If there would be one change to the map, it would be switching Columbus and Boston, but that's a toss-up and I'm sure the traditionalists would prefer keeping Boston in the Northeast.
I'm sure the happiest teams here are the ones in the Midwest division. Winnipeg is a bothersome travel destination for any team, but they belong with Minnesota, who in turn would much rather play Chicago and St. Louis than Vancouver, Calgary and Edmonton. Dallas is happy because they don't have to play all of their divisional road games on the west coast (or Arizona), and they can stay mostly in their own time zone. Colorado probably would have preferred to stay in the Pacific division, as it would be slightly less travel, but there would be no clear way to do that, without a huge shakeup or even more geographical mismatching, so its best that Colorado stays there. Nashville could have possibly snuck into the East conference with a little bit of creative shuffling, but its best that they stick with the central core of Chicago and St. Louis, both who don't have ridiculous travel to worry about for the most part.
There's not much to talk about for the Pacific, because that is really the only way to line up the teams, unless the teams were arranged North to South, which would be dreadful. This also leaves room for some expansion (wink wink) to Seattle, Portland, Las Vegas, San Antonio, or anywhere on the western side of the continent. Not saying there will be, but for the better of the league, I hope it happens.
Expansion will probably be my next topic of discussion ;)
But final word, the division alignment finally agreed upon is pretty much the best available option at the moment, especially since Phoenix is staying put. I could move Columbus and Boston, but the rivalries will trump out geography this time. The only thing I don't like is the uneven-ness of the divisions, something hopefully fixed by expansion sometime soon. But overall it has my seal of approval, not like it needed mine...
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