We are in the most STACKED conference, easily. But the advantage is we only have 7 teams. Hopefully the NHL doesnt use this as a case to add 2 more teams. Instead they should eliminate Phoenix and Winnipeg and have four 7 team conferences.
If you think about it we play all our current Atlantic division foes 6 times, and just add 2 more games with the Caps and Canes. But yea, would much rather be in the former Northeast conference.
I love it, bring in the Caps, i wanna see us smoke them! No more BB. Glad we are keeping Flyers, and Rangers, and adding Caps. Don't understand why people hate this.
We are in the most STACKED conference, easily. But the advantage is we only have 7 teams. Hopefully the NHL doesnt use this as a case to add 2 more teams. Instead they should eliminate Phoenix and Winnipeg and have four 7 team conferences.
But yea, would much rather be in the former Northeast conference.
We are in the most STACKED conference, easily. But the advantage is we only have 7 teams. Hopefully the NHL doesnt use this as a case to add 2 more teams. Instead they should eliminate Phoenix and Winnipeg and have four 7 team conferences.
What everyone needs to understand is that this was done to placate the Western Conference teams and cause a minimum amount of uproar by the East. Things were pretty much fine for the Northeast and the Atlantic Divisions before this alignment.
But not so much for all the other teams.
Southeast: Obviously Atlanta moved to Winnipeg which caused this whole mess. But Washington was also likely unhappy with being in a division with the rest of these teams and never developed a strong rivalry with any of them. The Florida teams suffer from poor attendance and maybe will do a little better with more games against Canadian teams which they apparently do well with attendance-wise. Carolina will probably be happy to get some more games against marquee teams even though the competitiveness of the conference is going to be brutal.
Central: Detroit and Columbus being in the West must be brutal for fans to follow their teams with many games starting at 9 or later local time. With this alignment they get more games against the Eastern and Central Timezone teams. The other teams in the Central will likely appreciate the lessening of overall travel.
Pacific: Dallas was pretty royally screwed with no divisional teams in their own timezone. They approve of the alignment. The future of Phoenix is uncertain at best and the new alignment allows them to easily move to Quebec without needing to do realignment again. The California teams are happy with more games against teams in the Pacific/Mountain time zones and more equity in the travel schedules of teams.
Northwest: Minnesota was in a similar situation as Dallas and will be happy to be in the new "Central" Conference. The other northwest teams benefit in the same way as the California teams.
So basically, everyone outside of the NE and Atlantic benefit from the new alignment. But then the two eastern conferences only have 7 teams which makes making the playoffs easier which was probably the carrot the league dangled.
We are in the most STACKED conference, easily. But the advantage is we only have 7 teams. Hopefully the NHL doesnt use this as a case to add 2 more teams. Instead they should eliminate Phoenix and Winnipeg and have four 7 team conferences.
Seriously, WTF.
There are two teams with historically awful attendance in historically awful markets (PHX and FLA) and you want to get rid of a team that just set up shop in a great hockey market (WPG)? Genius.
You are correct we don't want two more teams and do want two fewer but use your head as to which teams. Think long term, not who has the best record today.
Thinking it over a little more, I'm not liking the playoffs. Playing the same six (or seven) teams for half (or close to half) of your regular season, then being matched up with those same teams for half of your potential postseason as well, in conjunction with spreading out your meetings with the remainder of the league so thinly is a little bit overwhelming for me. I mean, there's rivalry and there's overkill. I like to see different teams just as I like to see rivals.
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Originally Posted by eXile59
Why is Buffalo not in our conference but Carolina is? From a travel aspect that is stupid.
Travel and geography are only half the story. If it were the full story, you'd probably just substitute the Rangers and Islanders with the Panthers and Lightning. The rub to all of this is that you only play teams outside of your conference twice. You can't isolate Buffalo from Toronto, Boston, Ottawa or Montreal just as you can't isolate the Rangers and Islanders from New Jersey, Philadelphia or us because you'd be killing off high interest match ups. As it stands, the NHL have attempted to make travel easier on the west (there's little difference to us in the Atlantic or the Northeast) while preserving as many marquee rivalries as possible.
When you talk about the teams that are the most committed to spending to the cap, have ownership that is committed to winning, and have no trouble attracting top free agents year in and year out, that's a short list of teams. On it are the Rangers, Flyers, Caps, Penguins and Devils.
This conference is way too stacked. If you have an open system where the top 8 make it, then fine. When you go to this backwards ass, closed conference system, it's total BS.
The NE group is good and 100% proof Tampa and FLA shouldn't have teams / should have teams relocated to Canada. Quebec City and Halifax all the way. As with so many other forced experiments, get hockey out of Florida. It was a dumb idea from the start (that transplanted midwestern and NE retirees and working families would adopt Florida teams instead of keeping their allegiances).
Quote:
Originally Posted by ChiChi Vitale
People can sit here and get indignant all they want and say "Floridians love hockey too" but the reality is, the sport is not even close to being on the radar in S. Florida. High school football is much bigger than the NHL, in S. Florida. That is a fact. The league can either accept it and the implications of that and move the franchises somewhere they'll be appreciated even during down years, or they can refuse to admit they made a mistake and continue on, forcing situations like this one.
I honestly have to wonder where you two (and everyone else who posts stuff like this) gets their opinion from, at least when it comes to Tampa Bay. No doubt that Florida has struggled mightily, but Tampa Bay has been an unmitigated success from every angle of what the league could have hoped for by expanding into a non-traditional market. Sure, ultimately, football is still king, but that can be said of pretty much every other market in the U.S., with a few exceptions. That said, there is a ton of local support for the Lightning. More importantly, youth hockey has really taken off in the Tampa Bay area.
So does this mean less Pens games on CBC and or other nationally broadcasted channels?
The Penguins will be playing less games against the Canadian teams, so probably. I feel bad for the Jets here, as they'll only have 12 games against the other Canadian teams all year being in a conference with 7 American teams. Not much of a way to rectify that, but the Jets sure as hell will be the redheaded stepson of Canadian coverage.
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Listening to Mears in the pre-show makes me question this move. He said this new realignment will actually cost the teams more in travel. I'm not okay with that at all. This was supposed to be done to help teams, not hinder them.
I'm not one to be smart in this function of the league. You guys know I'm going to stick w/ my x's and o's, but i'm not for making the cost go up.
So does this mean less Pens games on CBC and or other nationally broadcasted channels?
Quote:
Originally Posted by Big McLargehuge
The Penguins will be playing less games against the Canadian teams, so probably. I feel bad for the Jets here, as they'll only have 12 games against the other Canadian teams all year being in a conference with 7 American teams. Not much of a way to rectify that, but the Jets sure as hell will be the redheaded stepson of Canadian coverage.
Ouch.
As chances are I'll be moving outta town by next season and I won't be able to afford sattalite/Center Ice anymore if I do end up where I hopefully plan to be.
I don't wanna have to miss games again. Especially if we play West coast teams alot.
With no Center Ice, I missed enough Pens games as a kid growing up. I don't wanna have to go through that again after being spoiled with Center Ice for like 4-5 years.
Selfishly one of the reasons why I'm a fan is that the Penguins are guaranteed to be playing in Los Angeles and Anaheim every year now, so the odds I'll get to a Penguins game next season goes up twenty-fold.
Listening to Mears in the pre-show makes me question this move. He said this new realignment will actually cost the teams more in travel. I'm not okay with that at all. This was supposed to be done to help teams, not hinder them.
I'm not one to be smart in this function of the league. You guys know I'm going to stick w/ my x's and o's, but i'm not for making the cost go up.
I'm going to guess that the average cost per team may go up, but that the difference between least and most costly travel will be much lower. The issue wasn't so much expense as it was an inequity in travel time and expense. Players know which teams have the easiest travelling, and that is a factor that UFAs take into consideration.
I have no issues with it being a tough conference with big spenders. It was going to be no matter what. It already is. Now it is a division with 4 of 5 being major spenders. It will be a conference with 5 of 7 next.
I don't like the playoff format much from what I understand of it though.
this is phenomenal. Anything the league does to bring back the old divisional setups with divisional playoffs is positively a beautiful thing. Screw conference seeding with that nonsense that a division winner gets an automatic top 3 seed regardless of division quality. Now, we go back to the old Patrick Division wars which is a welcome sight.
Seriously, WTF.
As with so many other forced experiments, get hockey out of Florida. It was a dumb idea from the start (that transplanted midwestern and NE retirees and working families would adopt Florida teams instead of keeping their allegiances).
