Anyone hoping they realign again or change up the playoff format to be less division-oriented again soon? It doesn’t help Boston is so good this season but it’s halfway and it feels like it’d take something crazy for the first round not to be Toronto/TB.
Atlantic doesn’t even make much sense for a division with as many Great Lakes teams anyways.
Ok I did one. I'm not sure if I made it less division oriented or more. Basically I followed the NFL model as it and the NHL are the 2 leagues with 32 teams right now. To do this I made 2 conferences that are not based on geography, I called them the Gretzky Conference and the Howe Conference. Each conference like the NFL is divided into 4 divisions of 4 teams each. In my mind you could still do 8 playoff teams per conference, the 4 division winners and then the next 4 highest ranked teams as wildcards. So I tended to split teams near each other into different conferences, like how in the NFL the Giants and the Jets are in different ones. So for example Rangers and Islanders, Sharks and Ducks are in opposite conferences. No real rhyme or reason to how I decided who went where which I know destroys rivalries, but I'm sure the schedule could make it work. By chance Gretzky teams tend to be further west in the geographic region, and slightly on purpose teams he played on mostly ended up there. So heres how I have it
Gretzky Conference
East
New York Rangers
Boston Bruins
Philadelphia Flyers
Montreal Canadians
South
Tampa Bay Lightning
Dallas Stars
Nashville Predators
St. Louis Blues
North
Colorado Avalanche
Edmonton Oilers
Winnipeg Jets
Minnesota Wild
West
Los Angeles Kings
San Jose Sharks
Seattle Kraken
Vancouver Canucks
Howe Conference
East
New York Islanders
New Jersey Devils
Ottawa Senators
Toronto Maple Leafs
South
Florida Panthers
Carolina Hurricanes
Washington Capitals
Columbus Blue Jackets
North
Chicago Blackhawks
Detroit Red Wings
Pittsburgh Penguins
Buffalo Sabres
West
Anaheim Ducks
Vegas Golden Knights
Arizona Coyotes
Calgary Flames
So if we look at current NHL Standings as of when I post this the playoff teams be.
Gretzky Howe
1) Bruins 1)Maple Leafs
2) Stars 2)Hurricanes
3) Kings 3)Golden Knights
4) Jets 4)Penguins
5) Rangers 5)Devils
6) Kraken 6)Capitals
7) Lightning 7)Islanders
8) Wild 8)Flames
Interestingly making these changes there is only 1 difference in playoff teams. Mine adds in the Islanders in place of the Oilers. In reality the Islanders have 2 more points then the Oilers but are the first team outside of the Eastern wild card while Oilers are last currently in the West wild card.
So we get basically the same playoffs but more variety NFL style in potential matchups.
