Sources say under Bettman’s proposal, the league will have four divisions: Pacific, Midwest, East and South. It’s believed the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets would both get their wish to move to the East conference
Inter division playoffs means heightened rivalries.
I imagine it'd be something along the lines of:
Pacific:
San Jose
Los Angeles
Anaheim
Phoenix
Dallas
Vancouver
Colorado
Midwest:
Edmonton
Calgary
Minnesota
Nashville
St. Louis
Chicago
Winnipeg
East:
Toronto
Ottawa
Montreal
Buffalo
Boston
Detroit
Pittsburgh
Philadelphia
South:
Columbus
Florida
Tampa Bay
Washington
Carolina
New York Rangers
New York Islanders
New Jersey
...that's the best I can do in making sense of this idea.
One of the Jackets and Wings has to stay West, obviously.
They don't need to stay out west. Just have the top 4 in each division get into the play-offs. Each divivsion then plays down to one winner, then the division winners are in the semis.
Wow, and see Toronto get their ***** kicked by Pittsburgh, Detroit, Philadelphia, Boston? Damn...although I do like the format, back to the old school days and like that dude said, raise rivalries.
Would love to see the Detroit Toronto rivalry renewed.
And damn, will it be easy for Ovechkin to rack up pts against those sorry teams in his division.
I don't see any chance of us making the playoffs any time soon with this.
Philadelphia in second? Where have you been all day?
That'd probably be the toughest division of the four, though, yeah. I don't even think acquiring a guy like Richards would make us better than Pittsburgh (obviously), Detroit (obviously) or Boston, and not significantly better than Buffalo, Philadelphia or Montreal.
Rivalries would be fantastic with this kinda alignment, though.
Last edited by Frank Stallone: 06-23-2011 at 06:33 PM.
Philadelphia in second? Where have you been all day?
That'd probably be the toughest division of the four, though, yeah. I don't even think acquiring a guy like Richards would make us better than Pittsburgh (obviously), Detroit (obviously) or Boston, and not significantly better than Buffalo, Philadelphia or Montreal.
Are you implying they've gotten better or worse?
They have officially signed the top goalie they've needed for a long time and have added some good players and picks, but they've also lost their top two centres. I think it's hard to predict whether they will be ahead of Pittsburgh or below Detroit.
And it was more of just an estimate to prove the point that there is atleast 5 teams in that division that will most likely place above us.
I would love to see three 10 team divisions: West, Central and East. The top team in each division are seeded 1,2,3 and 4-16 are points. Then 1st plays 16th , 2nd -15th etc......... God that would be amazing.
God I hope not! We wouldnt see the playoffs again for at least another decade.
Leafs would get absolutely murdered in this format. Just look how stacked the East division would be. Keep the format the way it is, but possibly switch a couple teams into different conferences.
I would move Nashville to the southeast in Winnipeg's place, and put Winnipeg in the spot vacated by the Preds out west.
I love this idea.... I mean its not new, but rivalries are built in playoffs so eff the multiple game regular season series' and lets see some teams play each other in the playoffs multiple times in a row. All of the recent hightened rivalries have been because of multiple playoff matchups (Chicago/Vancouver) (Boston/Montreal) obv Boston/Montreal is historic, but it was kicked up a notch because of recent playoffs. Imagine a Leafs Habs playoff series....
They don't need to stay out west. Just have the top 4 in each division get into the play-offs. Each divivsion then plays down to one winner, then the division winners are in the semis.
I like it.
Me too. That would be effing awesome. But with Philly, Pittsburg, Detroit and Boston in our division, we will be ****ed.
Im not really sure why so many posters are supporting this...
Is the prospect of missing the playoffs for 10 more years really that exciting for Leafs fans??? This re-alignment would absolutely murder any faint playoff hopes we would have for the forseeable future.
