NHL Realignment, Part 3: Final thoughts

In Part 1 and Part 2 of our realignment series we looked at the theoretical gains and losses in terms of playoff spots, as well as the actual bleed of playoff spots between the conferences and odds for each team in the NHL. Take a look at those posts before proceeding. 

In this post we'll focus on some final thoughts about the new conference system.

The realignment map again.
Image by Tom Fulery

Winners and losers
Who are the winners then? Well, it depends on the time scale that you're looking at. Based on the last 5 seasons the major winners are Boston and Montreal who get a nice fat 20% increase in their playoff chances. Their new odds are in fact 100%., despite the fact that they haven't made the playoff each of the 5 last seasons.  So based on past performance I can already declare that Boston and Montreal will take 2 of the playoff spots from the Eastern conference.

Based on the last 10 seasons our big winners would probably be Dallas and Nashville, who despite being in an 8 team conference would still get a nice 9% bump up to 69%. Both should be looking to cash in on playoff spots next year.

Any losers? There sure are. Based on the past 5 seasons the biggest is Pittsburgh. They've been in 5 straight playoffs, so should be looking at a sure playoff spot. But, in the new Atlantic conference, their odds have taken a tumble down to 87%. Still pretty good, but no longer such a sure thing, specially with the Devils, Rangers, Flyers and Capitals hanging around, each with a 70% chance of one of the 4 playoff spots.

Based on the last 10 seasons the losers are pretty much any team in the Western conference, San Jose and Vancouver in particular. They each take about a 10% hit to their odds, down to 80% and 71% respectively.

Is Toronto one of the big winners? No, not really. They have a better chance than before, but still have to get past Boston, Montreal, Buffalo, Ottowa and Tampa Bay... all teams with better records the last 10 and 5 years.

Should Detroit want to move east? No, not really. They're in a cosy conference where they should be making the playoffs every year till global warming makes hockey impractical... They could move to the Eastern and still be nearly a sure thing in the playoffs, but a move to the Atlantic conference would be ill advised. If they did move into the Altantic, we'd have a hell of a conference totalling 53 playoff spots the last 10 seasons, but Pittsburgh and Detroit would both be looking at only a 71% chance of making the playoffs instead of being permanent fixtures (at least the last 5 years).

Final thoughts
Is the new conference setup the best one we could have come up with, given 4 conferences? It very nearly is. The only reasonable ones that I could find that yielded better numbers in terms of playoff "bleed" between conferences was to move Colorado into Central, and Columbus into Atlantic or Eastern (Eastern would be slightly better, numbers wise). Either move would reduce the bleed from 0.9 playoff spot each year to 0.8 or 0.6 playoff spots depending on where Columbus go. And either configuration would be safe against both a Phx-QC move and a Phx-KC move, i.e. the bleed would not get worse.

A Phoenix move you say?
Well... the math says that if they were to move to Quebec, then that would stop the bleed from the Western conference. We'd be down to a bleed of about 0.5 playoff spots across the whole league, down from 0.9. If they moved to Kansas City, then the best solution in terms of playoff bleed would be to push Columbus east, not Detroit. If Detroit were to ever leave the Central conference, that conference would become a playoff spot magnet, sucking in 1 whole playoff spot each year, from the other 3 conferences combined. The conference that Detroit moves to would then become the big bleeder.

The last thing I wanna do is talk about one potential problem with the new conference setup, namely which teams would not make the playoffs. If we look back at the last 5 season we can apply the new setup to the old divisional results. Now bear in mind that the game matrix is different, but still... Last year the LA Kings finished 12th in the NHL. They would not have made the playoffs, since Vancouver, San Jose, Phoenix and Anaheim would have been the 4 to go. Instead of the Kings we would have had the Dallas Stars into the playoffs. They finished 16th, so that's not too bad, but we'd also have the Rangers sneaking into the playoffs, much as they actually did last season. So we're trading 12th place for 18th. In 08-09 it would've been even worse. Carolina and the Rangers finished 11th and 12th that season, but neither would've made the new playoffs, since Washington, New Jersey, Pittsburgh and Philadelphia would have taken the 4 spots. Florida in 14th didn't make the playoffs, but would now, along with Anaheim and Buffalo in 17th and 18th. So effectively 11 and 12 wouldn't have made it, but 17 and 18 would have. That could be a concern, but the new game schedule should make this kind of situation really unlikely. If it were to happen consistently the perfect remedy would be to have 3 playoff spots per conference plus 4 wildcards. Looking back the last 10 seasons, such a system would have ensured that the top 16 make the playoffs every single year since 2000-01. Historically that would've been to the advantage of the two western conferences, particularly the new Western conference. If that system had been in effect we would have seen 48 playoff teams from the new Western conference in the last 10 years instead of "'just" 45.

Anyway, that's a whole lot of talk, and a whole lot of numbers. So I'll leave you all with this: The new 4 conference setup isn't all that bad, but we'll have to keep an eye on where the playoff spots go. It might all work out fine with the new game matrix. But if the conferences do stay unbalanced, a couple at 7 teams and a couple at 8, then yes, in time you will be more likely to make the playoffs from those conferences. But at the minute, previous performance, and the strength of the conference is a bigger factor. Hope you enjoyed all the statistics.