Rethinking the NHL: Your South Conference Champion Penguins?

                           Pacific Mountain Central East

There does seem to be a correlation to the sleep researchers’ conclusions in this small sample, though the East has prevailed in inter-conference competition in the past two seasons.

To reduce the East – West bias of travel-related fatigue, there are really only two choices: 1) contract the NHL by eliminating all nine Pacific and Mountain time zone teams, or 2) distribute the burden of travel-related fatigue across all 31 teams. Financially, choice #2 is more feasible. What if instead of the historic focus on East and West, the NHL considered a completely different format for allocating its teams?

NORTH – SOUTH CONFERENCE FORMAT

Think of the general framework of Major League Baseball. Both the American League (red lines) and National League (blue) each have East, Central and West Divisions featuring teams that are spread similarly across the nation’s time zones. In October, neither team playing in the World Series can claim that the other had a significantly more comfortable travel schedule during the regular season.

For hockey, to mitigate the current travel bias, how about transforming the NHL into a North – South alignment? In this scenario, every team shares the cost and punishment of cross-continent travel equally.

In the low-tech dynamic double-map below (click it to enlarge), the first map shows the present NHL divisions. Clubs from the Pacific and Central Divisions of the Western Conference are inside the red lines. For the Eastern Conference, the green boxes enclose the Atlantic Division clubs while the blue box groups together the Metropolitan Division clubs.

The second map shows the proposed two divisions of a North Conference (red brackets) and two divisions of a South Conference (blue brackets). Each conference’s divisions try to take into account existing traditional rivalries, time zone fairness and a balanced number of teams in the two conferences. (Yes, there are 31 teams now but in the next five years, assuredly another expansion team and realignment/relocation will yield perfectly even 16 team conferences.)

At last, travel miles are spread out more fairly across the NHL. Sure, eastern-based owners will grumble about increased travel costs and western teams’ players will grumble about increased fatigue. However, fair is fair. And half the fun would be seeing Jeremy Jacobs flip out about increased expenses. Note the new allocation of teams by time zones in this North and South format.

CURRENT      Pacific Mountain Central East

NEW                 Pacific Mountain Central East
North Conf         2           2                 4            8
South Conf         4           2                 2            8

• All seven Canadian teams are grouped in one conference
• Each conference features an equal number (8) of Eastern time zone-based clubs
• The triple metro New York City, Boston – Montreal, Toronto – Montreal and Battle of Ontario rivalries are preserved
• Flyers – Penguins and Capitals – Penguins rivalries are preserved
• The state of Florida is no longer treated like an island by the NHL

SCHEDULING

For simplicity, let’s assume Seattle gains an expansion team, slotted in the North Conference West Division yielding 32 NHL teams in 4 x 8 team divisions.

Own Division (28 total games, 14 home + 14 away)

• 7 teams x (2 home + 2 away)

Own Conference, Other Division (24 total games, 12 home + 12 away)

• 4 teams x (2 home + 1 away)
• 4 teams x (1 home + 2 away)

*alternate group of 4 teams each season to balance home ice advantage/disadvantage

Inter-Conference (32 total games, 16 home + 16 away)

• 16 teams x (1 home + 1 away)

GRAND TOTAL =  84 total games, 42 home + 42 away

We return to the 84-game schedule that was used briefly in the early 1990s. Start the season one week earlier to avoid awarding the Cup after the first day of summer. There are other scheduling formats that would maintain the current 82-game calendar but logic and simplicity should prevail. Having at least 1 home game and 1 away game against every team allows fans to see every star in their home arena at least once per season. McDavid vs. Crosby lives on.

Other advantages:

• Elitist Eastern Canadian hockey fans would finally stop whining about “too many games against Florida, too few against Western Canadian teams”
• Odds of a Canadian franchise in the Stanley Cup Final increase. Return on investment by Rogers Media, the payer of $5.2-billion (Canadian) to the NHL for broadcast rights, correspondingly increases as ratings show Canadian viewership is correlated with the success of teams north of the border

PLAYOFF FORMAT

The current division-based playoff format was especially exposed for its flaws this spring when two of the top four clubs were eliminated after the second round by the Penguins. Let’s return to the pre-2014 conference-emphasis: seed the division champions #1 and #2, then grant the next six best teams, irrespective of division, seeds 3 to 8.

• First round: #1 vs. #8, #2 vs. #7, #3 vs. #6 and #4 vs. #5.
• Second round: 1/8 winner vs. 4/5 winner and 2/7 winner vs. 3/6 winner. This greatly reduces the chance the strongest two teams meet before the third round.)
• Third round: Re-seed the final four teams based on regular-season record. #1 vs. #4 and #2 vs. #3. This creates a chance that teams from opposite conferences meet prior to the Stanley Cup Final. So be it. There are many seasons when one conference is clearly stronger at the top than the other. Let’s move away from thinking of the third round as the “Conference Finals” and allow two strong same-conference teams to not have to face each other in the semifinals. To put it another way, why should the mediocre conference be granted a pass to the Final while one of the clubs from the stronger conference is guaranteed to be eliminated before the Final?
• Stanley Cup Final: If it’s North vs. South, great. If it’s South vs. South, great. North vs. North? The U.S. could invade Canada in early June and Canadians wouldn’t notice. Who wouldn’t want to see a Battle of Alberta between Connor McDavid’s Oilers and Johnny Hockey’s Flames with the Cup on the line? An old-timey rivalry like Leafs vs. Habs or a new-school one like Kings vs. Ducks? Or at long last, Pens vs. Caps, extricated from the second round, and finally battling each other for the Cup.

The possibilities are endless.