NHL Realignment Project – Week 51: A Tweak for Rivalries

The previous week's realignment drew feedback, here and on Twitter, that despite the best efforts a few too many important rivalries had been split up. Week 51's map was a tweak of that one. There is no silver bullet that will please all people and teams, hence the blog's slogan of endless possibilities, no consensus, but this was the best addressing of rivalries in the entire project so far.

An additional by-product of the tweaks was a more balanced set of teams in the two conferences on the east side of the map.

The names, again

The four-conference breakdown from the previous year returned, with the Metropolitans and Bulldogs as the new clubs, and the same side note attached: the Quebec Stanley Cup champions were only informally known as the Bulldogs and were officially the Quebec Hockey Club at the time.

The author was careful to say he was not advocating those names. His preference was to let the people in each city vote on names vetted and presented by the two franchises, rather than letting the public submit suggestions or borrowing something hip that would look stupid in a couple of years. The example offered was the Toronto Raptors, with a facepalm.

Gretzky, Howe, Orr and Lemieux

The conferences honoured 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 Lemieux for the Penguins, who replaced Kennedy in the shuffle.

Travel and heritage

• Travel: the four conferences cut the load on Dallas, Winnipeg and Minnesota, while the lightest-travelled teams, the Lemieux Conference among them, took on a little more and still came out ahead of the western frequent fliers.
• The only teams crossing more than one additional time zone for an in-conference game were Detroit and Colorado, and only to play each other, which the post doubted they would mind given the hatred.
• Heritage: naming conferences for players invites endless argument about the omissions, with Richard, Kennedy, Plante, Hull, Bossy, Smith and Lafleur all in the conversation.

The schedule and the bracket

Seven conference-mates twice at home and twice away for 28 games, the 24 teams in other conferences once each way for 48, and an extra home-and-home against three opponents for six, with the pairings switched each season.

The top four from each conference reach a final four style tournament, all series best of seven: 1 versus 4 and 2 versus 3 in the conference semifinals, the conference finals next, then a Stanley Cup semifinal in which the best overall record picks its opponent.

One perk went unremarked by anyone else: with both of Erin Andrews' favourites in one conference, the Lightning and the Rangers, the league could expect more tweets, mentions and additional exposure to the Queen of All Media, now that Oprah had retired. The author welcomed all of it.