Re-Aligning NHL Divisions

Seattle is going to get an NHL team. It's not official but it is imminent. The leauge has invited the city to apply. When the team begins playing, the NHL needs to have a plan for how its divisions and conferences are going to work. Right now, the map looks like this:

Image from http://www.tomfulery.com/2017/12/15/2017-18-nhl-alignment-map/

Both the Eastern and Western Conferences have two divisions each. All but the Central Division (in red) have 8 teams. However, this map doesn't do the best job illustrating distance between divisional opponents. For that, take a look at the map below.



As both maps clearly illustrate, there is a huge collection of teams in the northeast, a handful throughout the middle of the country, and a cluster on the west coast.  Those spread out throughout the country provide the biggest challenge when it comes to realigning the NHL once Seattle gets a team.

Once Seattle is added, the location of teams will look like this:



With time zones added in:



16 of 32 teams are in Eastern Time Zone. 6 in Central, 4 in Mountain, and 6 in Pacific. This creates a scheduling nightmare, but for my realignment, I'm not focusing on the specifics of scheduling. Instead, I'm going to focus on keeping teams in divisions that make geographical sense and attempt to limit inter-divisional cross timezone games. I'm also throwing rivalries, out of conference games, playoff mechanics, etc. out the window.

With these conditions, there are pair of main layouts.

Four Conference Layout

The first option is a four conference layout. A North (greens),  East (orange/yellow), South (reds), and Western (blues) Conference, each two divisions, with four teams per division. The map below shows this.





With this map six teams would have to travel to another timezone, but that is minimized by the fact that the furthest divisional opponents are only a three hour flight apart (this honor is held by the Arizona Coyotes and St. Louis Blue's).

NFL/NBA Style Layout

The NFL has two conferences, with a North, South, East, and West division in each. Using the map above, you could take a division from each color group and throw them into one conference. This would create two, 16 team conferences, with four, four team divisions in each.

Right now the NHL's East and West Conferences don't work (in the real map) and they wouldn't make much sense in my map either. So what about North and South Conferences? Here's what it might look like:



The Northern Conference is in green and the Southern Conference is in blue.

If we are going all in with the NFL style, the playoffs could work the same. Each division winner gets into the playoffs and two teams with the best records of the remaining 12 get a berth. The top two division winners get a huge advantage (when it comes to hockey) by getting a bye.

My Thoughts

Personally, I prefer the four conference layout. It gives the league more flexibility when it comes to the regular season (how many divisional and conference games) and the playoffs (the amount of teams and how the bracket is structured), it creates and/or reinforces tons of regional rivalries, and simply makes the divisions nicer.

I hope you enjoyed this. It's definitely different than what I normally write about. I am planning on doing one for both MLB and the NBA in the near future. Please let me know what you think, subscribe via email, and share this.


All graphics without a listed source were created by me. 

What is the Franchise Tag?

Between February 20^th and March 6^th NFL teams can designate one player as a franchise player by placing one of three “tags” on them. These tags are called franchise tags and you may have heard of them. They are a mechanism teams have for retaining one player each season who would otherwise become a free agent. The process can get somewhat confusing however, as the three tags are generally referenced under one name even though they are each unique.

When a player is designated a team’s franchise player, the tag generally given is the Non-Exclusive Franchise Tag. This means that the player can negotiate with other teams, as the tag is “non-exclusive”. Should a player sign an offer sheet with another team, the sheet is sent to the original team who has the first right of refusal. They have 7 days to either match or decline the sheet. If they match, the player signs a contract with the exact terms of the offer sheet with the original team. If the original team declines, they receive two first round picks as compensation from the team that the player signed the sheet with, and the sheet becomes a contract. Should a player not sign an offer sheet, they are paid the higher of 120% of their previous salary or the average of the top 5 salaries at their position over the past 5 years.

What happens when given a Non-Exclusive Franchise Tag, graphic made by me

A team does, however, have the option to retain exclusive rights to a player via the Exclusive Franchise Tag. Like the Non-Exclusive Franchise Tag, a player’s salary is the higher of two calculations: either 120% of their previous salary or the average of the Top-5 salaries at their position. Since the latter amount has to do with current salaries only, the Exclusive Franchise Tag is more expensive, but can be worth it for a team as they retain exclusive rights to a player.

The third type of Franchise Tag is the Transition Tag. If applied, a player can negotiate with other teams and sign an offer sheet, and the team that tagged him has the same first right of refusal, just like the Non-Exclusive Franchise Tag. What makes them differ is that if the team declines to match the offer sheet, they do not receive any compensation. A player who is given a Transition Tag is paid the average of the Top-10 salaries at his position, making it less expensive then the alternative tags, but riskier with no compensation if the player leaves.

With more and more cap space and long-term contracts preferable, the usage of this mechanism to keep players for an additional year has been going down, even though the three types of tags give teams a unique set of options.