Last week, word came out about the proposed divisional re-alignment but there have been some tweaks since then. Michael Russo of The Athletic is among those to report (Twitter link) that Minnesota and Dallas have flipped from their original planning. That means that the divisions now currently line up as follows:
Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver, Winnipeg.
Boston, Buffalo, New Jersey, New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Washington.
Carolina, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Florida, Nashville, Tampa Bay.
Anaheim, Arizona, Colorado, Los Angeles, Minnesota, San Jose, St. Louis, Vegas.
Of course, this could wind up changing again if the all-Canadian division doesn’t get off the ground due to an inability to reach an agreement with each provincial health authority and the Canadian teams are forced to temporarily relocate to the United States. As things stand, this will only be a one-time change with the divisions going back to their usual breakdowns for the 2021-22 campaign.
More on the NHL’s restart plan:
- Players and team staff will be extremely restricted on the road. TSN’s Frank Seravalli notes (via Twitter) that all team members will be strictly limited to the team hotel, practice rink, and game rink in an effort to reduce the potential for anyone contracting COVID-19. Limitations will also be placed on in-flight seating, in-flight catering, usage of hotel gyms, and more. While the general framework of the agreement in place, these smaller elements still need to be finalized and agreed upon.
- The NHLPA executive committee discussed the agreement on a call late Friday night and the Board of Governors will soon do the same as TVA Sports’ Renaud Lavoie relays (Twitter link) that their call to discuss and potentially ratify the terms. Meanwhile, Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston adds (via Twitter) that general managers will also have a call on Sunday to go over some questions that need some clarification.
Good move swapping Dallas and Minnesota.
Why was it a good move? Makes absolutely no sense. This is for one season, not like they are trying to establish new rivalries. Minnesota might be the most screwed team in this with the distance of travel for division games
Dallas was the most screwed team, now it’s Minnesota – good move for Dallas, sucks for MN.
stl is also getting screwed hard too all 3 teams min dal and stl pretty much line up to how close they are to the west.
DAL is slightly closer to the SE teams, TBL and FLA – but you are right, there was no good solution – two out of Stl, dal and min were going to get screwed.
How does that suck for MN. Players be happy. It’s only division Wild could make the playoffs. Any other division they don’t make it.
Fair point.
Just need to reiterate. Tampa is going to murder that division.
Dallas makes it more competitive, big upgrade over MN. COL is going to murder their division, only competition is Vegas.
Tampa could be the first team to win 60 games in a 56 game season. Watch them top 100 points for real though.
Jjschwertner9 Colorado with finish behind stl and Vegas like usual.
St. Louis regressed last season, and lost pietrangelo.
That division has more fight in it than you are giving credit for. Obviously tampa is the favorite, but they wont be handed anything for free.
Carolina is dangerous on any given night.
Dallas and columbus will keep themselves in games.
Florida and nashville can steal a game at times.
If one of the scrubs chicago is rolling out in net gets hot, I could see streaks of what resembles competitive hockey.
I won’t try to polish the turd that is the red wings though. They are going to be awful regardless of what the divisions look like.
I’m interested to see how the schedule will play out of there is an all Canadian division. like are all 56 games within the teams division?
from what i herd on the local sports station it’s going to be like baseball div play only until playoffs. the big question is how there going to condense the schedule and are they going to do like in baseball where you play the same team for 3~4 games
thats not how baseball works
the whole mlb schedule is based on playing the same team 3 sometimes 4 games at a time yes it’s multiple times a year. yes i know in the nhl you only play each team 3~5 times a year. where the comparison come to mlb schedule was having team x play 3 games at y then and the others at y later to try and cut down on travel. the way these div break down right now stl and min would be going back and forth a lot if they stuck with a more traditional game here then over at another
My point was baseball does not play exclusively within one division during the regular season, as you stated.