Another Good Idea Ruined by Dangerous Minds

It's a Christmas miracle! Only weeks after leaving an owner's meeting with absolutely no consensus whatsoever on how to alter the master schedule to allow each team to play all others at least once, the collective braintrust has come up with a proposal so insane that it just might work.

According to tsn.ca, what's in vogue now is a plan to totally realign all 30 teams, reducing the number of divisions from six to four. That means, two divisions of seven, and two of eight, grouped according to "time zones" not necessarily geographic proximity. The playoff system guarantees the top two teams in each division a postseason berth, with four wild card spots in each conference available for the taking.

Amazing, really. The logic is staggering, to take something in dire need of repair, and breaking it even more in order to fix it again.

For the record, I was in favor of contracting four teams after the lockout, so that a 26-team league could return to the four-division format. Now that 30 teams are economically viable, I can live with the two-conference, six-division system in place since 1998. There are easier ways to get around the problem the current schedule presents without radical surgery.

For instance, let's dispense with the notion that everything has to exist on even numbers...and there are still two ways to work a schedule where each team has 29 opponents every season:

1) Split divisional games where you play two teams 5 times, and two teams 6 times (22 total) rotate each year; play all conference opponents 3 times each (30 total) rotating the home and away each year; play all opposite conference teams twice, 1 home, 1 road each season (30)...that makes 82 games.

2) Keep the current 32 intra-division games (eight per team), play conference opponents three times each (30), and set up the opposite conference by playing all the teams in one division at home, all the teams in another on the road, with the third division teams played once at home and once on the road (20) - rotating each season.

If it's too hard to keep all these factors in balance, knock off two intra-division games from Plan #1, and you have an 80-game season.

As far as the divisions are concerned, why would a conversion to a 7-8-7-8 format make for a better, or more fair playoff system with guaranteed spots for the top four finishers in each conference? Playoff contention is a competition, a desperate contest, not something that needs to be mollified in the name of fairness.

It wasn't fair that, under the old system where 1 through 4 in the division made the playoffs regardless of record, two teams in the Patrick Division with winning records missed the playoffs in 1988, while Toronto made it with 21 wins. OK, the switch to a 1-8 regardless of division standings took care of that mess. Now, because Toronto played in a great Northeast Division and missed the playoffs with 90 points last year, the league has to throw itself into turmoil again? I think not. You miss the postseason because you played in a great division? Thems the breaks, pal. Nothing is perfect, but the present system is about as equal as you're going to get.

Based on the TSN article, Pittsburgh (if they stay) and Atlanta get the shaft because they exist in a netherworld where you can plug them into any number of division-realignment scenarios. I could see either of those teams crying foul in the 7-8-7-8 alignment if they lose a bunch of games late in the season because they had to yo-yo between far-flung Central time-zone locations (Minnesota, St. Louis, Dallas) and home in the Eastern time zone - similar to what happened when Winnipeg moved to Phoenix in 1996 but remained in the Central Division for two seasons. At least in the six-division system, where teams are grouped mostly because of geography, the bouncing act wouldn't happen.

Even if Pittsburgh moved, things would turn out easier with a six-division alignment. All you'd need to do if the Pens relocated to Kansas City is place KC in the Central, move Nashville to the Southeast, and bring Washington into the Atlantic. A move to Winnipeg complicates things a bit more, since they'd be a better fit in the Northwest, but if you move them to the Pacific, the only extra move would be to put Dallas in the Central and bump the rest over. Pittsburgh to Hamilton or Hartford means Toronto might be bumped back into the Western Conference, but wouldn't mean any extra moves. In a four-division set, you'd inevitably have one division casting a wider net than others in terms of the distance between teams with relocation possibilities.

I wish I could say that saner heads will prevail, but with a simple 2/3s majority needed to implement any plan, it's more than likely that the group which does the most politicking for their favored plan will get the nod. Here's where Ed Snider actually could be of some use - one of the lone Old School voices booming from on high, begging his peers to save themselves from ruin - just as he did during the 1994-95 lockout.