A new realignment is expected to be proposed this week, and it would feature four conferences, two of which would have eight teams, according to CBC's Elliotte Friedman.
According to NHL.com, in the new proposal the teams in the seven-team conferences would play six games against one another, three home and three away, while in the eight-team conferences teams would face each other five or six times a year, on a rotating basis. The realignment attempts to match teams better in a geographical sense. Here is a breakdown of the four conferences:
Conference One: Carolina, Columbus, New Jersey, New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington
Conference Two: Boston, Buffalo, Detroit, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa, Tampa Bay, Toronto
Conference Three: Chicago, Colorado, Dallas, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis, Winnipeg
Conference Four: Anaheim, Calgary, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver.
This new alignment would promote conference rivalries with more emphasis on teams closer to each other. For example, the Boston Bruins, Montreal Canadiens, and Toronto would be able to duke it out in their own conference, while the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers will be direct competitors.
According to Puck Daddy, a Yahoo! Sports hockey blog this realignment would benefit the Columbus Blue Jackets, due to the division rivalry with the Pittsburgh Penguins that would be born.
To deal with the unbalanced conferences affecting playoff berths, the proposal is this, according to Puck Daddy-- "The original concept: The Stanley Cup Playoffs will begin inside each conference, with the top four teams squaring off in divisional playoffs. The four conference champions will advance to face each other for the right to play for the Cup, potentially without geographic restrictions (i.e. they're re-seeded)."
Friedman has said the NHL is considering a wild-card option for the eight-team conferences, where the fourth and fifth seeds face each other in some kind of play-in game or series with the winner moving on to the conference's top seed.
This format would allow two Eastern or Western teams to battle for the Stanley Cup. The big loser in all this, according to Puck Daddy, would be the Nashville Predators, who preferred to move into the East, but instead stay west and lose several games against the Detroit Red Wings.
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