I’d like to talk about the National Hockey League (NHL) expanding from 32 to 36 teams.
An expansion of the league would bring in a lot of expansion fees, but potentially a lot of interesting opportunities.
Currently, the NHL consists of the following reams, in the following Conferences and Divisions
Atlantic Division
Boston Bruins
Buffalo Sabres
Detroit Red Wings
Florida Panthers
Montreal Canadiens
Ottawa Senators
Tampa Bay Lightning
Toronto Maple Leafs
Metropolitan Division
Carolina Hurricanes
Columbus Blue Jackets
New Jersey Devils
New York Islanders
New York Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins
Washington Capitals
Pacific Division
Anaheim Ducks
Calgary Flames
Edmonton Oilers
Los Angeles Kings
San Jose Sharks
Seattle Kraken
Vancouver Canucks
Vegas Golden Knights
Central Division
Chicago Blackhawks
Colorado Avalanche
Dallas Stars
Minnesota Wild
Nashville Predators
St. Louis Blues
Utah Mammoth
Winnipeg Jets
Four new teams would be added, two in each conference. The question would be where to put those extra teams (cities) and how to breakdown each conference.
Here are the proposed new teams that I would add to the NHL:
Eastern Conference: Quebec City, Quebec (Quebec City Nordiques); and Hamilton, Ontario.
Western Conference: Houston, Texas; and San Francisco, California.
There are other options for NHL teams:
Eastern Conference: Halifax, Nova Scotia; Baltimore, Maryland; Cleveland, Ohio.
Western Conference: Saskatoon, Saskatchewan; New Orleans, Louisiana; Austin, Texas; Portland, Oregon; Kansas City, Kansas; Milwaukee, Wisconsin.
Cities that I would not consider: Atlanta, Georgia or Phoenix, Arizona.
Okay, let’s get the obvious ‘Why Not?” question out of the way: I would not choose Atlanta or Phoenix for the obvious reason that they have both had NHL teams recently and lost them. In Atlanta’s case, they lost two teams. Sorry, but neither city deserves another chance at the moment.
Okay, now here is why I am choosing the cities I have:
Eastern Conference:
Quebec City is an obvious choice, which has been discussed over the years. They will have a nature rivalry with the Montreal Canadiens as well, plus the Boston Bruins, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, and New Jersey Devils are nearby geographically and being in the same conference as the Toronto Maple Leafs helps too.
I picked Hamilton for two reasons: 1) that we need another city in the Eastern Conference, and 2) they would have natural rivalries with Buffalo and Toronto. Also, they are in the western end of the Greater Toronto and Hamilton Area (GTHA), the largest area in Canada in terms of population and income.
And as Canadian based teams they are likely to do well in attendance as hockey is popular in Canada.
Western Conference:
Houston has already been discussed as an option by the NHL for an expansion team and would have a natural rivalry with the Dallas Stars. Houston already has a population of 2.3 million as well.
San Francisco. San Francisco already has professional sports teams in the Giants (MLB), 49ers (NFL), and Golden State Warriors (NBA.) San Francisco is the fourth most populous city in the U.S. and would have natural rivalries with the Anaheim Ducks, Los Angeles Kings, and San Jose Sharks.
The new question would be how to breakdown the new alignments. I would go to six teams in three divisions per conference.
This is my thinking:
Eastern Conference
North Division
Detroit Red Wings
Hamilton (Steelers?)
Montreal Canadiens
Ottawa Senators
Quebec City Nordiques
Toronto Maple Leafs
Metropolitan Division
Boston Bruins
New Jersey Devils
New York Islanders
New York Rangers
Philadelphia Flyers
Washington Capitals
South Division
Carolina Hurricanes
Columbus Blue Jackets
Florida Panthers
Philadelphia Flyers
Pittsburgh Penguins
Tampa Bay Lightning
Western Conference
North Division
Calgary Flames
Edmonton Oilers
Minnesota Wild
Seattle Kraken
Winnipeg Jets
Vancouver Canucks
Southwest Division
Anaheim Ducks
Los Angeles Kings
San Francisco Seals (?)
San Jose Sharks
Utah Mammoth
Vegas Golden Knights
Mid-West Division
Chicago Blackhawks
Colorado Avalanche
Dallas Stars
Houston Astronauts (?)
Nashville Predators
St. Louis Blues
With the exception of the Quebec Nordiques, I am open to changing the team names of the other teams, (I only added names for them as an example.)
In this re-alignment, eight teams from each conference (16 total) would still qualify for the playoffs. The division leaders would all be guaranteed a playoff spot, with the other five spots in each division going to the next best teams based on their standings in the conference. However, the division leaders would only be guaranteed a spot, so that could mean as low as the eighth seed. Thus, the top four teams in each conference, based on their records, would get home ice advantage and the top teams would all qualify. By not automatically assigning the divisional leaders to the top three positions, it means that teams would continue to have to win even after clinching their division in order to get home ice advantage (plus, it means that a stronger team would not lose out on home ice advantage if a divisional winner came from a weak division.
The question of how the season would breakdown is the next question is how to deal with scheduling the regular season.
I would suggest the following breakdown:
Each team would play:
Their divisional opponents four times (20 games)
The other 12 teams in their conference two times (36 games)
Each team in the other conference two times (36 games)
The would get you to 80 games. I would increase the regular season from 82 to 84 teams, thus adding a third game against four conference opponents from the other two divisions. This would put an emphasis on playing teams within their own division, and to an extent within their own conference. One suggestion for the third game against a conference opponent could be a hybrid form of what the NFL does. A team would play a game against the opponents who finished in the same place in their division (two games), thus say a team finishes in third place in their division (North) this season. Then next season they would play a game each against the teams that finished in third place in the Metropolitan and South Divisions (the other two divisions in the Eastern Conference. The final two games could be either random games (one team from each of the other divisions or against a ‘rivalry’ team.
To explain this, let’s us my favourite NHL team, the Toronto Maple Leafs, as an example. The Maple Leafs would play in the North Division of the Eastern Conference. Thus, they would play four games per year against the Detroit Red Wings, Hamilton Steelers, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, and Quebec Nordiques – two home games and two away games. The would then play two games against every other team in the league (one home, one away.) For the final four games, let’s say they finished in third place in the North Division last season. They would then play the third place teams in the Metropolitan Division (the New York Rangers, for example) and the South (the Pittsburgh Penguins, for example.) This would leave room for two more games – let’s say one against the New York Islanders and one against the Florida Panthers.
The NHL could also simply stay with 82 games, which would mean in the example above that the Maple Leafs would not face the Islanders or the Panthers. But, I believe the extra two games are beneficial as it puts a bit more emphasis on competing against teams in their own conference.
Those two games could be determined as the first place team in one division playing the second place team in the other two divisions, and then the second place team from the same division playing the first place teams from the other two. The extra games could be determined by determining the ‘Division Order’ by the name of the division (thus in the Eastern Conference the Divisions would be ‘ordered’ as Metropolitan, North, and South and in the Western Conference as “Mid-West, North, and Southwest”.)
Thus, in the Eastern Conference (as an example), the first place team in the Metropolitan Division last season would play the second place teams in the North and South Divisions while the second place team in the Metropolitan Division would play the first place teams in the North and South Divisions. With six teams in each division, you would just continue this down the standings (i.e. the third place team in the Metropolitan Division versus the fourth place teams in the North and South, and the fourth place team in the Metropolitan Division versus the third place teams in the North and South.)
This sort of situation would make scheduling more easy as it would be relatively easy to do.
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