The Major League Baseball community is buzzing with talks of realignment . Commissioner Rob Manfred recently proposed the idea of shaking up the league's structure if MLB adds an expansion team sometime in the near future.
Imagine the New York Yankees and New York Mets squaring off as permanent divisions rivals, or the Dodgers and Giants being split apart — a change that would feel just as shocking to hockey fans, as say, breaking up the New York Rangers and New York Islanders .
So let's play the same game with hockey. We're deep into the NHL offseason, and the League's current four-division format isn't bad, though maybe outdated. When the realignment was introduced in 2013, the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken didn't exist, and the Phoenix Coyotes (changed to Arizona Coyotes in 2014) hadn't relocated to Utah. With multiple expansion teams since and shifting geography, it's fair to ask what would a new, rivalry-driven realignment of the NHL look like today?
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Few divisions in sports could match the intensity of this one. The Hudson Divison brings together three of hockey's most heated metropolitan rivals — Rangers, Islanders, New Jersey Devils — and adds in the Original Six Boston Bruins. Every team in this divisions has history and hostility against one another. Rangers-Islanders and Rangers-Devils remains two of the NHL's hottest rivalries, and Bruins-Rangers is as classic as it gets.
Travel works perfectly too. All four teams are in the Northeast, meaning shorter flights and more energy for the games.
This division builds on historical and current Metropolitan Division rivalries. Flyers-Penguins is a classic, while the Penguins-Capitals rivalry has defined this current era of hockey, thanks to superstars Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin .
The Hurricanes fit geographically in a division with the Florida teams, but hey are also have history and rivalries with these teams because of their Metropolitan Division roots. This grouping keeps traveling contained nicely to the East Coast, stretching from Philadelphia, down to Raleigh, and out west a bit to Pittsburgh.
This divisions revives one of hockey's first rivalries. The Chicago Blackhawks and Detroit Red Wings have a century worth of history, though it's been muted since 2013, when the Red Wings moved out of the Western Conference.
The Columbus Blue Jackets and Minnesota Wild round out this divisions with geographical fits, if not traditional rivalries. The Blue Jackets cover the Midwest and also give the Red Wings a new regional rival right down I-75. All four teams sit in the Great Lakes or Upper Midwest region, minimizing travel for divisional matchups.
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The Canada East division would be pierced with history. The Montreal Canadiens-Toronto Maple Leafs rivalry features two proud Original 6 franchises. The Ottawa Senators add in an Ontario-based rivalry with the Maple Leafs and recent animosity with the Canadiens, a nearby neighbor. Throw the Buffalo Sabres in the mix — a team just across the border and a long-time rival of the Maple Leafs — and you get a division where every matchup feels perfect.
From a travel standpoint, this is as clean as it gets. Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal are connected along Highway 401 and Buffalo is across the Peace Bridge . Every team here has a fan base with chips on their shoulders — especially the Leafs and Canadiens. This divisions would be unpredictable, heated, and deliver must-watch hockey.
This is the Canadien gauntlet. The Battle of Alberta between the Calgary Flames and Edmonton Oilers is aurguably the best hockey rivalry in Canada. The Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets round out the group.
What makes this division so interesting is identity. Every divisional game would carry national pride, and the sense of tradition. Fans across Canada would rally around this division, and the playoff series between any of these four would be great theater.
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The Battle of California between the Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, and San Jose Sharks has produced some of the most memorable playoff series over the years. Adding in the Seattle Kraken gives the division a new edge.
From a travel perspective, this is one of the tightest divisions in the League. All four teams hug the Pacific Coast, giving West Coast fans matchups they can stay locked into. The division balances legacy rivalries with new blood.
The Mountain Division binds new markets with established organizations. The Vegas Golden Knights and Colorado Avalanche have already built a modern day rivalry through multiple playoff series, and slotting the two together makes sure those showdowns stay a regular battle. The Utah Mammoth have the opportunity to gain immediate regional rivals in both Las Vegas and Denver. Dallas rounds out the pod, giving the historical presence from the Central Division .
Even though the traveling distance between these teams is greater than most of the other divisions, all four clubs fall in the Mountain or Central time zones. For fans, the storylines write themselves: the Golden Knights with Mitch Marner and Jack Eichel , the powerhouses in the Avalanche and Stars, and a hungry Utah team looking to carve out its place in the NHL.
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On paper, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Florida Panthers are East Coast franchises. But in this realignment, it's about creating divisions that mesh. The Battle of Florida is one of the League's best rivalries, and keeping the Lightning and Panthers together while pairing them with the Nashville Predators and St. Lous Blues makes far more sense than forcing them into one of the Eastern Conference divisions.
The result is a division that captures the southern teams, keeping travel logical. The Florida teams avoid constant cross-border trips unlike in their current Atlantic Division set-up. Nashville and St. Louis make more sense in this division than Toronto, Ottawa, and Montreal.
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Under the new format, the NHL season would expand across eight divisions of four teams split into two conferences. The 84-game schedule should maximize rivalries while staying balanced across the League.
Each team would play its three divisional opponents five times apiece, totaling 15 games. The home and away splits would alternate each season (two home/three away one year, then three home/two away the next season).
Against the rest of the conference — the other 12 teams outside of the division — clubs would meet three times each for an added 36 games (one home/two away one year, then two home/one away the next season).
The remaining 32 games would come against the opposite conference, with every team playing a home and away game. That brings the total to 83 games, leaving room for one extra rivalry/flex game for each club.
With the NHL realigned into eight divisions of four, the postseason would be a straight 1-8 seeding in each conference, regardless of divisional standings. Divisions titles will still matter for bragging rights, but spots would be earned purely on overall performance. For standings tiebreakers, the head-to-head record takes precedence.
Of course, the chances of the NHL moving to an eight-division format is slim at best. The current structure already has its deep routes, and the League realigned its divisions just over twelve years ago. That being said, it's always fun to imagine how things could look if the NHL decided to shake things up.
At the end of day, this realignment was more of an experiment rather than a prediction, but one that could make you think twice about how the NHL could continue evolving.
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