Your Canadiens for December 5, 2011

Thinking today might be a relatively mundane day in the Habs' realm, I thought I might be able to wait till tomorrow for this update. But there is enough hot button news to put this out this evening.

- Most notably, minutes ago, it was revealed that the National Hockey League has agreed on a realignment of its divisions for the 2012-13 hockey season. Gone is the current divisional structure, replaced with simply 4 larger imbalanced conferences - two of 8 teams, and two of 7. They are composed as follows:

East (7): Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Boston Bruins, Ottawa Senators, Buffalo Sabres, Tampa Bay Lightning, Florida Panthers

East / Atlantic (7): New York Rangers, New York Islanders, Philadelphia Flyers, Pittsburgh Penguins, Washington Capitals, Carolina Hurricanes, New Jersey Devils

Central (8): Detroit Red Wings, Columbus Blue Jackets, Winnipeg Jets, Chicago Blackhawks, St. Louis Blues, Nashville Predators, Dallas Stars, Minnesota Wild

West (8): Vancouver Canucks, Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, Los Angeles Kings, Phoenix Coyotes, Colorado Avalanche

For the Canadiens, the new schedule will see them play a home-and-home against all non-conference teams (meaning each team will visit the Bell Centre at least once a year), and then have 6 games against each club in their new conference (3 at home and 3 on the road).

For the playoffs, the first two rounds will be played strictly within conference. The top 4 teams from each conference make the post-season, with the first round being 1 vs. 4 and 2 vs. 3, and then the winners facing off in round 2.

Per commissioner Gary Bettman, no official decision has been taken on the seeding of the final 4 for the semi-finals and finals, but it is likely that the remaining 4 teams will be seeded based on regular season standings, meaning it is possible for two teams from eastern North America or two from western North America to face-off in the Stanley Cup Finals.

This is pretty drastic, and there is certain to be a lot of opinion and discussion to go around over the coming days, weeks, and months. My initial reaction is not to like the imbalance, which essentially provides easier post-season berths to the teams in the 2 Eastern conferences. But I don't necessarily hate it. I'm willing to give it a chance.

- Elsewhere, USA Hockey announced the preliminary roster for their World Junior Championship squad. Amongst the 9 defenseman on the list is the Habs' Jarred Tinordi. He would appear to be a near-lock for the squad at this point as part of a shutdown pair, and his name has been thrown around as a possible team captain, given that he fills that role presently for the London Knights, and previously wore the C for the U.S. Under-18 team.

- Tomas Plekanec missed practice today, but have no fear! It wasn't due to an injury. He and his wife Lucia Vondrackova welcomed a son, Matthias, to the world. Congratulations to the happy parents!

- Filling in temporarily for Plekanec at practice was Andreas Engqvist, rehabbed from his recent injury. Later in the day, the Canadiens officially assigned Engqvist to the Hamilton Bulldogs.

- Also in practice, wearing a normal contact jersey for the first time, was defenseman Chris Campoli. With Andrei Markov out another few weeks, Campoli's near return to the line-up is a welcome piece of news to Habs fans and the Canadiens' powerplay. Jaroslav Spacek also practiced with the team, but in a non-contact jersey, while Ryan White skated on his own and then spoke briefly with reporters in the dressing room. Other than Plekanec, the only Hab not to skate today was Scott Gomez.

- On the Andrei Markov front, he underwent successful arthroscopic surgery on his knee in Florida today. Though Pierre Gauthier initially stated the expected recovery time would be 3 weeks, the team revised this estimation to something more realistic today, offering a prognosis of 4-6 weeks. Did Gauthier float the 3 week number just to minimize criticism when face-to-face with reporters?!

- Lastly, there is a bit of a public dispute going on between Max Pacioretty and Brendan Shanahan. Pacioretty spoke out disagreeing with Shanahan's decision to suspend him for 3 games, claiming that Shanahan had compared his hit to Matt Cooke's on Marc Savard. Shanahan disputed this claim on the Team 990, saying that not only had he not compared it to that hit, but he went out of this way to explain that he wasn't drawing that comparison. This line is a little tough to follow; if he wasn't comparing the hit, why bring it up at all?! By saying that he explicitly stated he wasn't drawing a comparison there, it means he must have at least mentioned it! And Pacioretty agrees, as he repeated today that he feels the comparison was made, and made unfairly. He and his agent preferred to compare the hit to Ryan Malone on Chris Campoli, a dirty hit which went undisciplined by Shanahan.

What Realignment Means and Why Not to Worry

At the occasion of last week's NHL Awards (want to beat Jay Mohr WON'T be back next year?), Gary Bettman revealed his vision of the future - specifically the 2012-13 NHL season. With the Winnipeg franchise playing out the coming season in Atlanta's old spot in the South-East Division, it is clear that something will have to change. But what exactly? Could it be as simple as Winnipeg jumping to the West with Detroit finally coming East, and then re-configuring the make-up of the existing divisions? Then what happens if Phoenix moves to, say, Quebec City or Hamilton a year later? And what about Columbus, who like Detroit, is burdened with a difficult travel schedule from their geographic location?

Bettman's tentative plan, it seems, is something somewhat drastic: a vast realignment whereby the current structure would be scrapped in place of two conferences of just two divisions each. In the shorter term, it would mean uneven balances, with each conference having a division of 8 and one of 7 teams, but Bettman expanded by adding expansion to 32 teams at some point would not be impossible. He didn't say it, but hockey fans everywhere would be quick to remind him that contraction to 28 teams could be just as adequate of a solution.

Radical, perhaps, but not never-before-seen. Before the most recent waves of NHL expansion, the league consisted of four divisions: the Patrick and Smythe Divisions, which made up the Campbell Conferenece, and the Adams and Norris Divisions, which made up the Wales Conference. But it is issues like these that had the Toronto Maple Leafs playing in the “Western” Conference at times in their history.

Let’s take a look for a second at a scenario whereby no one moves after this season and there are no new teams being introduced. What might this new NHL look like? I guess the easiest way is to group together teams who MUST be in the same division. Starting with the East…

1) North-East:
Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs, Ottawa Senators, Boston Bruins

When the NHL went to the newest iteration of its schedule, one of the justifications was to “increase rivalries.” Of course it makes sense for the Maple Leafs to be in a division with their biggest rivals, the Senators and Canadiens, but Montreal’s nearby north-eastern foe, the Bruins, should be glued to this trio as well.

Clusters:
2) New York: New York Rangers, New York Islanders, New Jersey Devils
3) Pennsylvania: Pittsburgh Penguins, Philadelphia Flyers
4) Florida: Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning

For both rivalry and geographic reasons, it would make no sense to ever separate any of these club groupings.

Now we’re left with the Buffalo Sabres, Carolina Hurricanes, and Washington Capitals, plus one team moving from the West to the East. Everything points to that team being the Detroit Red Wings, but it is hard to move them while justifying keeping the Columbus Blue Jackets and Nashville Predators West.

The Sabres fall somewhere between the North-East and New York groupings, while the Canes and Caps could realistically join any of the clusters, making them the easiest ones to work with.

So let’s take a shot at this.

EASTERN CONFERENCE

North-East Division
Montreal Canadiens
Ottawa Senators
Toronto Maple Leafs
Boston Bruins
Buffalo Sabres
Detroit Red Wings
Pittsburgh Penguins
Philadelphia Flyers

South-East Division
Florida Panthers
Tampa Bay Lightning
Carolina Hurricanes
Washington Capitals
New York Rangers
New York Islanders
New Jersey Devils

It’s a little awkward putting the New York teams in the “South” while the Pennsylvania teams are in the “North”, but this is roughly as close as you can get due to the inability to split the clusters we identified. Maybe we’ll see the re-emergence of naming schemes like Adams and Norris to smooth the understanding of the realignment.

Next we shift our focus to the other side. Similar inseparable clusters emerge:

1) Western Canada
Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, Winnipeg Jets

2) The North + East (ironically also the “Mid-West”)
Chicago Blackhawks, Columbus Blue Jackets, Minnesota Wild, St. Louis Blues

3) California + South-West
Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, San Jose Sharks, Phoenix Coyotes

This geographic grouping leaves us with 3 “outliers”, being the Nashville Predators, the Colorado Avalanche, and the Dallas Stars, where it would seem the easiest classification goes according to time zone. However, given the three zones covered by Western Canada, a North-South split that alleviates travel distance seems easiest to establish.

Coordinating this is a bit messy, but let’s try:

WESTERN CONFERENCE

North-West Division
Vancouver Canucks
Calgary Flames
Edmonton Oilers
Winnipeg Jets
Minnesota Wild
Chicago Blackhawks
Columbus Blue Jackets
St. Louis Blues

South-West Division
Anaheim Ducks
Los Angeles Kings
San Jose Sharks
Phoenix Coyotes
Colorado Avalanche
Dallas Stars
Nashville Predators

This would be one scenario with each conference featuring divisions of 7 and 8 teams respectively. There are a number of scenarios as to how this could work in terms of standings. One option is to follow the AHL’s imbalanced divisions approach: the top 4 teams from each division make the playoffs, and the first round of the playoffs is within the division only (followed by the standard re-seeding). There can be a clause by which if the 5th place team in the 8-team division has more points than the 4th place team in the 7-team division, it gets ranked ahead and “crosses over” to make the playoffs instead.

Alternatively, you could imbalance the conferences by taking Columbus out of the West and adding it to the East to create a conference with divisions of 8 and one with divisions of 7. The most logical way to manage this model would be a system that some in the media have been clamouring for regardless: have the top 16 teams league-wide make the post-season regardless of divisional or conference ranking.

In either case, there are a number of plausible scenarios that will shake-up the make-up of the National Hockey League following this season. But just as the league has survived many schedule alternations, and even the standings-impacting implementation (and subsequent modification) of the shootout/overtime loser point, this will not truly impact the game we all know and love on the ice.

So don’t freak out when you hear about a “major change to the NHL” in the form of realignment. Your Canadiens will still be Your Canadiens, whether they play in the North-East Division of the Eastern Conference or the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Division of the Ted Lindsay Conference. Let the cards fall as they may, and don’t let this be another reason to hate on Gary Bettman – the man has a difficult job, and may make mistakes, but let’s focus on the important issues like quality of product and safety of players. It is in the NHL's favour to bring us the fans the great matchups like Montreal-Boston, Montreal-Toronto, or games against other Canadian teams, and since we indirectly sign their paycheck, at the end of the day, they will give us what we want.