It took a couple of years, but it finally happened... the Winnipeg Jets are finally in the Western Conference and everyone is happy, right? Well, the trade-off was seeing Detroit and Columbus move to the East and now we have some lop-sided conferences for the time being.
With all of this realignment, I think there can be some real change to some teams and their scoring outputs. There's no question that we'll see some really good match-ups in the East, as the race for the playoffs will be a tad tighter, with two extra teams, but with some open scoring and some top end talent, it has the right mix for some real fireworks this year.
We'll start with the Atlantic Division, as we wee eight teams of both the North and South, opening up some travel numbers, but definitely servicing those who spend time in Florida, the Canadians of the East. If there is anything that can help the attendance numbers of the Florida teams, it will be the ol' snowbirds, which makes all kinds of sense. It does open the can of worms, which is the travel issue, but with enough trips where teams will play everyone in the region, it could be managed quite well.
One of the new boys in the East, the Detroit Red Wings, will likely benefit quite well from the move to the Atlantic Division. The old Central Division was a tough one with hard playing teams like Chicago, St. Louis and even Columbus (some nights) and now the number of teams of the grinding variety drops to one in the end, Boston. Playing a bit more wide open will likely help guys like Pavel Datsyuk, which is why I have him so high in my projections.
I get the feeling that the new alignment will likely hurt the Florida teams, production-wise, since the quality of their divisional opponents got a whole lot harder. The old Southeast Division was wide open, with seemingly very little defense to consider, thanks to Carolina and Washington relying so heavily on their goaltending and Winnipeg playing an in-between game. Open scoring players, like Steven Stamkos or Martin St. Louis should still be able to provide, but they may not help their team win as many games.
For the most part, I don't see a real big change for the Canadian clubs, as they have their old division mates, plus the way they match-up against the Panthers and Lightning are not enough to suggest that there will be a great difference this season. Matching up against Red Wings may be a bit of a trick, but everyone has to do it and playing a few more games against the new guys should even out the competition, due to the learning curve of each side.
There is no lack of talent in the new Metropolitan Division, in fact, they may have overstacked the competition in this division. Let's see... Sidney Crosby, Evgeni Malkin, Claude Giroux, Alex Ovechkin, John Tavares, Rick Nash, Marian Gaborik, Eric Staal... just to name a few. I get the feeling that the first couple rounds could be very Metropolitan-centric. Overall, I think this division will be one hell of a firefight for the playoffs and we may see the two wild cards come out of here as well.
With all of this offense surrounding them, it is a good thing the new boys to the East, the Columbus Blue Jackets, have last year's Vezina Trophy winner, Sergei Bobrovsky. Sure, Bobrovsky got chased out of the old Atlantic Division, where five of the eight teams came out of, but the Jackets have played through the tightly contested Central Division, so it may be their defensive prowess that keeps them alive this year. I don't have Bobrovsky faring too well this season, as the shock value for the Jackets may be too great.
I believe the team of interest, other than the new boys, will be the Islanders, who have been slowly building up into being a reasonable contender in the East. Between Tavares and Evgeni Nabokov, the team from Long Island has been building around the right blocks and since they made the playoffs last season, it will be a focus point to see how they stack up in the new alignment. If the kids like Michael Grabner and Josh Bailey grow accordingly, they could be in decent shape.
Now that Ilya Kovalchuk has gone home to play in Russia, how will the new-look New Jersey Devils fare in the new division? Well, sure... they added more goaltending in Cory Schneider and tried to replace the scoring that Kovalchuk left behind with Jaromir Jagr, Ryane Clowe and Michael Ryder, but they didn't make the playoffs last year with less questions about their club. There will be points coming from New Jersey, but I'm not sure that the club as a whole will be as strong, which could lead to some smaller scoring totals.
The new Central Division... the grab bag division of the NHL. There is a little bit of everything in this division, as the old Central only takes a few teams, adds a couple old Northwest teams, throws in a Pacific team and the new boys to the West, Winnipeg, an old Southeast Division team. Without question, this mix of teams, playing styles and stars will provide the most intrigue through the year. Can anyone really tell how the whole division is going to play out? I mean, Chicago is likely going to win the division, but two through seven is a real toss-up.
Divisional realignment is supposed to help travel for a number of clubs and between Dallas and Winnipeg, it will do that quite well. Dallas doesn't have to travel to the Pacific time zone as many times, which they deemed detrimental to their fan base, who had to stay up later to watch a lot of their road games, which they needed to play a lot of divisional road games in California. They got their wish. Will it make them play any better? Unlikely. For Winnipeg, the travels from the Great White North to the Sun Belt was pretty bad, since four-fifths of their division was in the Southeast United States. Will they play better for this move? Actually, I think they will.
For Colorado and Minnesota, the move from the Northwest to the Central may also mean a little bit less travel, but I think the quality of opposition within the division got a little bit tougher. The Northwest Division was not quite as good as it had been in previous years and I think for a team like Minnesota, they may get a bit of a quick reality check, while the Avalanche are still rebuilding their team a little and can likely adapt with their youth. As a whole, I still like Zach Parise and Ryan Suter,
The new Central Division is a heavy goaltending sect of the league... Corey Crawford, Semyon Varlamov, Kari Lehtonen, Niklas Backstrom, Pekka Rinne, Brian Elliott and Ondrej Pavelec... the projected starting goaltending looks tight and it may very well come down to who has the best keeper through 82 games that sees their side sneak into the playoffs. A complimentary offense to a team's goaltending wouldn't hurt either. The grab bag will be fun to watch, even if it is tight throughout.
Finally, it's the Pacific Division, where the Canadian teams of the Northwest meets the Southwest of the USA and the results are going to be, well... compelling. The teams in the old Pacific Division have been growing in strength and credibility over the last few seasons and they will get to meet a restructuring bunch from the old Northwest, some further along than the others. I think the competition will be good for everyone and the playoff race could be a decent one from this division.
Division winners Anaheim and Vancouver are not necessarily locks to win the new-look Pacific Division, as there will be some stiff competition from both Los Angeles and San Jose, while Edmonton and their young guns will keep everyone on their toes as well. There are plenty of stars in this division as well and they'll all be scratching and clawing for points this season. Corey Perry & Ryan Getzlaf, Taylor Hall & Jordan Eberle, Anze Kopitar, Joe Thornton & Logan Couture and Daniel & Henrik Sedin will all make the division fun to follow along with.
Now that the Phoenix Coyotes are now safe, for at least the next five years, they can start spending some of their own money and building upon the foundation that has kept them reasonably competitive over the last three or four seasons. I think Phoenix will match-up well with their new division mates, as much as they have against their previous rivals, which shouldn't discount their projected values. At the end of the day, only Mike Smith should be considered the big draw, but the desert dogs should provide reasonable depth in the hockey pools this year.
One team that may suffer more than the others will be the Calgary Flames, since the other six teams have either been staying the same or improving over the last couple of seasons, the now rebuilding Flames will not only have their own shortfalls to contend with, they will have to play some strong teams from the old Pacific Division more regularly. Calgary already has their own goaltending questions, as life without Miikka Kiprusoff, although still unofficial, still looks rather cloudy behind question marks like Karri Ramo and/or Joey MacDonald. Scoring depth is far from sorted out, as they will rely on the depth that didn't step up for them last season, so I'd beware of some pitfalls here.
I don't see a lot of these changes being too great on the overall picture, but if you were looking at your list of players, trying to decide on a number of candidates for a 2nd through 5th round pick, I think divisional values should come into play. I don't think it's unreasonable to look at two guys projected for 60 points and opting for someone in the Metropolitan Division, rather than the Central Division. This is all part of the homework process and if you've got a good feeling for what you think is going to happen in the league, it could prove to be a leg up on draft day.
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