NHL realignment possibilities

The NHLPA shot down the league's proposal for a 4 "conference" alignment stemming from the Atlanta franchise's move to Winnipeg for the 2011-2012 season. I didn't like that alignment either, and the NHLPA gave some very good reasons.

I had originally came up with a 5 division alignment. Now I'm going to throw out all possibilities.

Simple Realignment
Atlanta moved to Winnipeg, but Winnipeg has remained in the Southeast Division. Move Winnipeg to the Northwest Division to be with Minnesota (435 miles away), Edmonton (817 miles), and Calgary (825 miles). Colorado can then move to the Pacific Division, and Dallas to the Central Division, and Nashville to the Southeast Division. That's easier than it sounds.


5 Division Alignment
6 teams in each division. It's a little different from my original plan.

Smythe (West)	Norris (Central)	Campbell (Southeast)	Patrick (Atlantic)	Adams (North)
Los Angeles	Chicago	Dallas	Washington	Columbus
Anaheim	Detroit	Nashville	Philadelphia	Toronto
Phoenix	Minnesota	St. Louis	New Jersey	Ottawa
San Jose	Winnipeg	Florida	NY Rangers	Montreal
Colorado	Edmonton	Tampa Bay	NY Islanders	Buffalo
Vancouver	Calgary	Carolina	Boston	Pittsburgh

Schedule
Play 3 home-and-home series with each team in your division (30 games). Play 1 home-and-home series with each other team (48 games). Play 1 additional game against 1 team from each other conference. Do it based on prior season's standings, so the five 4th place teams each play one another one additional time. Let a formula and rotation dictate which teams host which other teams. Similar to the NFL's schedule formula. For example, let's say that the table above is the standings. Colorado would play an extra game against Edmonton, Tampa Bay, NY Islanders, and Buffalo; In addition to Colorado, Edmonton would also play Tampa Bay, NY Islanders, and Buffalo. And so on. That's a total of 82 games.

Playoffs
Since there's 5 divisions, there is no longer the concept of 2 Conferences (you can't split 5 divisions in half). So have a super-playoff of 16 teams, with 5 division winners being ranked among themselves 1-5 and 11 wild cards being ranked 6-16 (similar to each Conference's playoffs with 3 division winners and 5 wild cards).


Super-Conferences
Hear me out. Forget divisions. Just have 2 conferences of 15 teams each or 3 conferences of 10 teams each. Now, there are some possibilities here. You can go East/West. You can go North/Mid-America/South. You can go random/mixed and call it Wales/Campbell.

East/West

East		West
Montreal	Toronto	Anaheim	Los Angeles
Ottawa	Boston	San Jose	Vancouver
NY Islanders	NY Rangers	Phoenix	Colorado
New Jersey	Philadelphia	Calgary	Edmonton
Washington	Carolina	Winnipeg	Minnesota
Florida	Tampa Bay	Chicago	Detroit
Buffalo	Pittsburgh	St. Louis	Nashville
Columbus		Dallas

Schedule
2 home-and-home series with each team in your conference (56 games). 1 home-and-home series with each team in the other conference (30 games). And either expand the season by 4 games (and probably 1 week in the calendar), or cut 4 non-conference games off the schedule.

Playoffs
Top 8 teams in each conference in the playoffs. From there, it's the same as it is today.


North/Mid-America/South

North	Mid-America	South
Montreal	Boston	Florida
Ottawa	NY Islanders	Tampa Bay
Toronto	NY Rangers	Nashville
Buffalo	New Jersey	Dallas
Detroit	Philadelphia	Phoenix
Minnesota	Washington	Los Angeles
Winnipeg	Chicago	Anaheim
Calgary	Columbus	Colorado
Edmonton	Pittsburgh	St. Louis
Vancouver	San Jose	Carolina

Schedule
3 home-and-home series within your conference (54 games). 1 home-and-home series outside your conference (20 games). 8 additional non-conference games to be split 2 home and 2 road in each of the other 2 divisions. 82 games total.

Playoffs
3 Conference winners and 13 wild card teams.