NHL Realignment Project – Week 50: Metropolitans and Bulldogs

This week's realignment was somewhat inspired by the Lords of the Stanley Cup infographic from the week before. Expanding to a 32-team league, the author picked the larger two of the four cities that have won a Stanley Cup in the past but no longer have teams: Seattle and Quebec City. The other two, for the curious, are Victoria, British Columbia and Kenora, Ontario.

The idea was reinforced by the poll then running, which showed those two cities with the highest support for NHL expansion, with the usual caveat that the vote was not scientific and the author was no Nate Silver.

Not far-fetched anymore

With Markham's arena deal hitting the skids, this was no longer a fantasy map. It may actually be the way things turn out, which is a strange thing to write about a scenario built on two cities that lost their teams generations earlier.

The names

The league went with the common names of the Stanley Cup winning teams from Seattle and Quebec: the Metropolitans and the Bulldogs. A side note followed, because the archive is precise about this sort of thing: the Quebec Stanley Cup champions were only informally known as the Bulldogs and were officially the Quebec Hockey Club at the time.

The conferences were named as an homage to the greatest players, arguably, in the history of the teams within them: Gretzky for the Oilers and Kings, Howe for the Red Wings, Orr for the Bruins and Kennedy for the Maple Leafs.

Rivalries and travel

• Rivalries: the obvious ones stayed, secondary ones like Buffalo and Toronto were maintained where possible, and some of the Howe Conference teams could evolve into good rivalries, like Dallas and Nashville.
• The Flyers and Rangers stayed together, as did the Flyers and Penguins, which settles an argument the comments had been having for weeks.
• Detroit and Colorado were reunited, which the post announced with a you're welcome.
• Travel: the four conferences cut the burden on Dallas, Winnipeg and Minnesota, and the only teams going beyond one additional time zone for an in-conference game are the Red Wings and Avalanche, and only to play each other.

The schedule and the bracket

Seven conference-mates twice at home and twice away makes 28 games, the 24 teams in the other conferences once each way makes 48, and half of each conference pairing up for an extra home-and-home, with the pairings switched each season, makes six.

The top four in each conference qualify for a final four style tournament, all series best of seven. Round one is 1 versus 4 and 2 versus 3 on overall record, round two is the conference final, and round three is the Stanley Cup semifinal with the best record choosing its opponent.

The heritage names invited the usual objection: with only four conferences, where are Richard, Plante, Hull, Bossy, Smith and Lafleur? The post's answer was that the debate is part of the point.