NHL Realignment: Conference Imbalance Would Give Eastern Teams Financial Benefit

Oh, eastern bias. You’re about to get more exaggerated in the NHL. Well, that is if realignment winds up passing with the NHLPA’s blessing. The main concern of the union is a mix of both travel worries and the imbalanced conferences that will give Eastern teams a better chance at making the playoffs, and as it turns out, that imbalance will also be a bit of an economic boon for the teams along the Eastern Seaboard.

We’ll let SB Nation’s Battle of California blog explain things from here.

Let’s talk about the annoyances of commercial air travel.

1. Getting to the airport. It’s a pain in the ass. You need to get somebody to drive you there. You need to make sure you get there earlier than early. You need to bring your own luggage and wait in that long line to check it at the counter.

The National Hockey League announced today that it will not move forward with implementation of the Realignment Plan and modified Playoff Format recently approved by the NHL Board of Governors for the 2012-13 NHL season.

The NHLPA has refused to provide its consent to the deal, which signals what is likely the first battle in CBA talks between the league and the players. The current CBA expires after this season.

NHL realignment is a bit confusing for fans, so we can imagine how difficult it is for players to wrap their heads around. It’s a radical departure from the norm, with the tried and true two-conference plan going out the window in favor of four smaller conferences. And there’s the whole balance thing, with the “East” two pods having 14 total teams -- seven in each pod -- and the “West” having 16 total teams -- eight in each pod.

Video after the jump.

Most NHL observers see the newly proposed Conference D -- or the reconstituted Patrick Division, if you will -- as one of the stronger conferences under the realignment approved by the NHL Board of Governors. But if the NHL season ended today, that would actually be the lone conference sending an “inferior” team to the NHL playoffs.

Other familiar matchups:

There was one overarching theme throughout the several month long debate on NHL realignment: You’re not going to be able to please every single team.

While that held out in the end, with the NHL’s Board of Governors reportedly voting 26 to 4 in favor of the radical four-conference plan, it’s impressive to see just how much support the idea did pick up. It only needed 20 of 30 votes to pass, and there were questions as recently as Monday afternoon on whether or not those votes could be had.

Gary Bettman spoke with the media in Pebble Beach, Calif. on Monday evening, where he presented the league’s realignment plan as voted on by the NHL’s Board of Governors. The plan calls for a new four-conference system, which will feature more of a balanced schedule and a focus on regional rivalries.

That whole Eastern Conference and Western Conference thing? Yeah, a thing of the past. Here’s Bettman explaining the entire plan, as it fit into the context of the meetings:

The NHL Players Association does have a say in how the league realigns, and as the Board of Governors has recommended a dramatic shift to a four-conference system, there’s still that little wrinkle to work out.

Via the Globe & Mail, here’s a statement from NHLPA spokesman Jonathan Weatherdon on Monday evening:

Travel was one of the big concerns as we debated NHL realignment, especially for Western Conference teams. As it stands under the new four-conference system, the league will see a bit more balance when it comes to travel.

Dirk Hoag at SB Nation’s Nashville Predators blog On the Forecheck crunched the numbers on the league’s new alignment. Teams will play five or six games against other conference opponents, while a home-and-home will be played against each opponent from other conferences. Taking that into account, here’s the breakdown:

NHL realignment is here, and there’s a ton of news flying around. Let’s break down all the information as easily as we can, first with a look at which teams fall where.

We’ve posted this map about 18,000 times now, so just click if you’d like to see it again. Here’s a different visual breakdown of the new conferences.

NHL realignment is here, and yes, it’s radical change that will face the league as it begins the 2012-13 season. The league’s Board of Governors voted in a four-conference system that doesn’t include divisions. The news was first reported by Gary Lawless of the Winnipeg Free Press.

The debate, originally assumed to be a contentious one, took only an hour to conclude, according to several reports.

But on Saturday night, when the newest radical realignment proposal came out on CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada, it became pretty evident to me that the power doesn’t necessarily lie in Detroit, but instead several hundred miles East in Pennsylvania.

Think back to the first radical realignment proposal, if you would. Of course, it was also broken by CBC’s Elliotte Friedman back at the beginning of November. That plan included many of the same elements as this new plan does: four “conferences,” some with eight teams and some with seven, a balanced schedule with home-and-home games played between each team in the league.

But would the league really make a move that solves nothing except the concern of two owners? Or is leveling the travel playing field throughout the league Bettman’s bigger goal? Both possibilities sound almost rooted in a desire to please the Red Wings -- but does the league really owe one of its signature franchises such a debt?

What’s changed over that time isn’t that the Red Wings generously agreed to play out of their home time zone. Rather, the NHL kept adding teams two and three time zones away (giving Detroit’s traveling and dislocated fanbase some sunny places to visit in the process). San Jose, Anaheim, Phoenix, Colorado and Calgary have all joined the league schedule over those years, and with in-conference teams playing each other four times per season, that makes for a travel and time displacement schedule that’s worth investigating.

Another radical NHL realignment plan was outlined on CBC’s Hockey Night In Canada on Saturday evening, and it’s a plan that again shifts to a four-division format that eliminates the need for conferences.

With the details coming via CBC, here’s a map of the new alignment that’s been put together by Cassie McClellan over at Lightning blog Raw Charge. You can click to enlarge.

Of course, the Wings happen to be one of the most influential organizations in the NHL.

We don’t know if anything will be actually finalized by the time the Board of Govs goes their separate ways on Tuesday afternoon, as it takes a two-thirds vote to finalize anything, but we do know that they’ll be discussing two very different plans. Via Sportsnet:

A reported plan for NHL realignment that would dramatically alter the NHL’s divisional landscape has drawn mixed reactions around the league. Teams and fans either love it or hate it -- or they think it’s just OK.

Count the Flyers and Penguins among the proposals biggest opponents. The new plan would put the intrastate rivals in different divisions, which would mean the sides would play just two games each season in a home-and-home series.

A plan for NHL realignment could dramatically shake up the the league’s current division alignment and postseason system. CBC’s Elliotte Friedman introduced the plan on Hockey Night in Canada on Saturday Night (video), and set the chances of it going through at “50-50.”

The proposal offers significant change. Before getting to the details, here’s what the realignment would look like, via ProHockeyTalk:

NHL realignment is happening next season, and it seems as though we’re going to experience a major restructuring of the National Hockey League landscape when everything falls in place.

This is kind of par for the course. There has been a major realignment of NHL teams five times in the last 44 years, dating back to the 1967 expansion. That would be an average of once every eight or nine years, and one could say that we’re due for such a dramatic shift today, if the league’s history is any indication.

The Jets are playing in the Southeast division this season as a result of moving from Atlanta during the summer. But this change still leaves Detroit geographically challenged. While Detroit gains the Eastern Conference spot in has long desired, their new division rivals range from Washington to Carolina and from Tampa to Sunrise, Fla.

However, these small changes are contrary to multiple reports over the summer that had the league looking toward radical realignment.

In the wake of Atlanta’s move to Winnipeg, Gary Bettman and the NHL have set a December deadline for a decision on realigning the existing divisional structure.

“Obviously we have to make arrangements to move Winnipeg west, and we had an opportunity to explore the issues. No conclusions were reached, but it’s something I’m hopeful we can resolve at the December meeting.”

Via an interview with Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch in The Detroit News:

H/T: Craig Custance

We’re not going to have an announcement or even a decision today or likely any time in the near future, but NHL realignment is indeed on the agenda as the NHL’s Board of Governors meets in New York City on Tuesday.

More via NHL.com:

The NHL is planning on realigning its divisions next year, though it has yet to give any specifics as to how it will realign and which teams will be where.

Another thing to notice, if we assume this is true and that Detroit is heading East, the Pacific Division should look a little something like Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose and Vancouver.

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