Redwings To Move To The East And Some Possible Extreme Realignment Possibilities

[Kipper]

Detroit owner Ilitch: Bettman promised move to Eastern Conference
By Greg Wyshynski


Now that the Winter Classic in Philadelphia has been formally announced, the new worst-kept secret in the NHL is that the Detroit Red Wings will be moving to the Eastern Conference (or whatever it'll become) in next season's realignment.
Red Wings owner Mike Ilitch, in a wide-ranging interview with Bob Wojnowski of the Detroit News, said that the NHL has promised his team they're "next" for realignment when the Winnipeg Jets are sent westward for 2012:

Q. OK, once and for all, are you gonna get the Wings out of the Western Conference or not?
A. The commissioner (Gary Bettman) promised me I was next. We even had a meeting over lunch this past season, and he had all his people here, and he goes, 'Yeah, I promised Mike he'd be the next one to go in the Eastern Conference.' So I expect to be in next year. Jimmy D (Devellano) is on the phone every other week reminding them.

Well, if Jimmy D. is on the case, you know it's going to happen ...

Here's the NHL problem: It has promised Detroit a move, and Mike Ilitch is too important to not keep that word. But it also knows that the Columbus Blue Jackets need realignment to the East more than the Red Wings do, from a future-of-the-franchise perspective.

One team, despite a few empty seats at the Joe, is doing quite well despite the time zone challenges. The other team needs to grow a fan base than now has to watch nearly two dozen games a season that start past 9:30 at night; and that only gets to see the Pittsburgh Penguins, their clear geographic rival, once a season.

From Dark Blue Jacket:

I suppose I should be surprised by the news out of Detroit. I'm not. The Wings are NHL bedrock. They took one for the team and stayed in the West in the last realignment while Toronto went East. They've been accumulating IOU's for years - probably longer than the Blue Jackets have been around. Now it's time to collect.

Let's hope that Priest, Howson & Co. are as deft with the Board of Governors as they have been in acquiring and developing talent for the 2011-2012 season. Because when you're David to Ilitch's Goliath, you're going to need all the help you can get.

Factor in the Nashville Predators potentially having a claim to move to the Southeast Division — albeit as a Central Time Zone team — and you have three franchises with their own legitimate claims of necessity for realignment.

So that's why instead of a simple one-for-one swap with the Jets, we're at a point in which the whole system might be blown up in realignment; because a few teams are in the mix, and because there's zero chance the NHL would ever move the Jackets over the Wings.

The answer, in the end, is to move both the Wings and the Jackets to the East, creating an unbalanced conference format until (a) further relocation or (b) expansion. It makes sense geographically, and it makes sense for the sake of their bleary-eyed fans.

Keep a promise to an Original Six team; do what's right for a recent expansion team. In the end, the only ones really ****ed off are Western Conference teams that suddenly see their Winged Wheel meal ticket motoring East.

But that's the real issue, isn't it? That the NHL would be taking the marquee team from the Western Conference and moving it to the East, where five of the Original Six would now reside. That it would seriously impact teams like St. Louis, Nashville and Phoenix (to name a few) that fill the barn with the Wings come to town is undeniable; but is that compelling enough a reason to keep them in the West?
How do you see realignment shaking out?

Related: Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Nashville Predators, Pittsburgh Penguins, Winnipeg Jets, Hockey Fans

[Kipper]

Should the NHL blow up its conference format for realignment?
By Greg Wyshynski


The NHL's Board of Governors met on Tuesday, giving conditional approval of the verification line and verifying that the conditions surrounding next season's realignment are, frankly, complicated.

From Dan Rosen of NHL.com:

A number of realignment scenarios were laid out in front of the governors, including ideas to keep the current six-division format or move into a four-conference format, featuring two conferences of eight teams and two conferences of seven teams.

Completely overhauling the current system into a four-conference system would obviously require the League to change the playoff format as well.
"There are no shortage of issues and possibilities," Commissioner Gary Bettman said. "There are a number of clubs that would like to see an adjustment as far as where they're aligned, and every club that felt that way had an opportunity to explain to the board why. We went around the room to get a sense of what people were thinking."

At the heart of this matter, which should be settled in December: The Winnipeg Jets moving out of the Southeast Division in 2012.

Under the current alignment, they'd move to the Northwest Division, meaning someone from the Western Conference would come back east. Seeing as how the Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets and Nashville Predators all have their desires to realign to the Eastern Conference, it's either make some tough decisions or blow up the current system.

This "four conference plan" sounds suspiciously like the "four division" plan Bettman proposed back at the NHL Draft, according to Y! Sports NHL columnist Nick Cotsonika in June:

Sources told the Ottawa Sun the league would have four divisions — the Pacific, Midwest, East and South. Two divisions would have eight teams; two would have seven. Teams would play a balanced schedule in the regular season, with the top four teams in each division making the playoffs. The first round would be divisional play. Then teams would reseed for conference play.
One NHL executive said Saturday the plan would have four divisions — two with eight teams, two with seven — as outlined in the Ottawa Sun report, but he was vague about whether there would even be Western and Eastern Conferences. He said the divisions would be based on time zones, a common-sense solution to TV and travel problems that some teams face and have been frankly unfair for years.

Essentially, it's a format that'll have two reps from each conference entering an eight-team tournament for the Stanley Cup.

As we've said before, the notion of divisional play in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is sexier than Scar-Jo with a cell phone camera.

It harkens back to the gory, glory days of the Patrick/Adams/Norris/Smythe playoff battles, where rivalries were born and burned into our memories as fans.

One of the formats discussed on Tuesday was an all-Canadian division. Could you imagine the mania in seeing two all-Canadian first round matchups? Every. Single. Season?

The two questions about any proposed format:

1. Would it resolve some of the lingering issues with markets like Detroit, Columbus and Nashville, insofar as travel time and the chance to give their fans fewer games starting late on the West Coast?

2. Would it improve the current playoff format?

That second question is the essential one.

The Stanley Cup Playoffs are the greatest annual tournament in all of sports. (March Madness is fabulous, no doubt, but talk to us when they go seven games per round.) Doing anything that makes the regular season more equitable or competitive at the expense of the Playoffs just isn't something worth doing.

Related: Columbus Blue Jackets, Detroit Red Wings, Nashville Predators, Winnipeg Jets, Gary Bettman: Commissioner for Life

[Beezy]

I don't mind these ideas tbh.

[El Sid]

Well, maybe I'm being too simple minded and thinking too old fashioned, but I believe if you're going to base your conferences/divisions on geography, they should in fact be geographically correct. It would irritate me to have a team in the West be farther East than another team in the East.

At this point, though, I think it's too early to worry about a major overhaul with the uncertainty of the futeres of the Coyotes and Islanders. Right now, we should just wait it out, but go ahead and move Nashville, Detroit, or Columbus to the East until we see what happens with those two teams. (IMO, the logical choice to me would be Nashville since they are already kind of south east.)

Personally, with the instablility, I think they should get rid of the Eastern and Western Conferences. Have a Prince of Wales and a Clarance Campbell Conference, and make it like the NFL and MLB where it geography doesn't matter. It would suck for us adding more late games, but IMO, it would be more fair to everyone in regards to travel, and game times. The Eastern Conference had it made with every team being in the same time zone. Detroit and Columbus are the only two teams within THEIR time zone. Kinda sucks for them. That's why I think it should just be mixed.

(Not saying this is the best answer, it's just something I threw together as an example) Maybe the alignment could look like this:

PRINCE OF WALES CONFERENCE

Lemieux Division
1. Pittsburgh
2. Philadelphia
3. Columbus
4. Carolina
5. Tampa Bay

Richard Division
1. Montreal
2. Boston
3. Buffalo
4. Chicago
5. Winnipeg

Gretzky Division
1. Los Angeles
2. Anaheim
3. Phoenix
4. Colorado
5. St. Louis

CLARENCE S. CAMPBELL CONFERENCE

Smythe Division
1. Toronto
2. Ottawa
3. New Jersey
4. New York
5. New York

Howe Division
1. Detroit
2. Washington
3. Minnesota
4. Nashville
5. Florida

Messier Division
1. Edmonton
2. Calgary
3. Vancouver
4. San Jose
5. Dallas

We could have a little fun, and have each division winner name the division for the next year. It would totally suck for the Pens to have to play in the "Clarke Division."

[foslrock]

I actually like the format of 4 divisions, where the top 4 teams make the 1st round and then each division sends two teams to a tournament where all teams are reseeded and there are no conferences. I really like that idea. Seems like it's a mix between the old Wales Conference days, and the old original six days tossed together into something new. NHL is always on the forefront of cool ideas, IMO. I like where that could go. Means the Pens could play the Sharks or a team like that in the 2nd round..