NHL history riddles with relocations

About 1,300 miles — that’s how far the Winnipeg Jets have to travel to play a National… About 1,300 miles — that’s how far the Winnipeg Jets have to travel to play a National Hockey League Southeast divisional game against the Washington Capitals. The Jets, previously based in Atlanta and known as the Thrashers before this season, have thrown a wrench in the NHL’s division format.

In order to create a more balanced travel format for all teams while attempting to maintain rivalries, ESPN reported that NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman and the league’s Board of Governors have agreed to implement a drastic change.

Four conferences — yet to be named — will replace the two-conference, six-division alignment already in place. Every team will be guaranteed a home-and-home series with every nonconference team in the league and five or six against every conference foe.

But this isn’t the first time the NHL, or its teams, have switched it up.

The capital of Georgia and hockey just don’t seem to get along. Atlanta is now the only city in the modern era to have an NHL team relocate on it twice, and the city constantly causes the league a headache.

In 1980, just eight years after debuting, the Atlanta Flames — whose name harkened back to the burning of Atlanta by U.S. Army General William Sherman during the Civil War — went north for (a little longer than) the winter and settled in Calgary.

The NHL has a relocation and expansion history that many current fans know nothing about. For example, how many of you knew that the New Jersey Devils franchise is currently in its third city?

There are many ignorant fans out there that had no idea that the Devils started as the Kansas City Scouts in 1974 before moving after just two horrendous years to Colorado, where they became the Rockies.

After six equally bad years in Colorado, they jumped cross-country to New Jersey in 1982, where they’ve been ever since.

That started a trend in the 1990s in which teams left less-populated but hockey-rich areas in search of bigger markets. In 1993, the Minnesota North Stars went south after 26 years — and two Stanley Cup Finals appearances — and landed in Dallas.

In 1995, Colorado got a reprieve when the Quebec Nordiques — 16-season veterans of Canada — relocated and became the Colorado Avalanche.

In 1996, the original Winnipeg Jets moved to Phoenix to become the Coyotes, who are embroiled in their own financial troubles at the moment — relocation remains a possibility. Finally, in 1997, the Hartford Whalers moved to Raleigh, N.C., and became the Carolina Hurricanes.

The last time the NHL needed to tweak its divisions came in 1999, when the Thrashers entered the league as an expansion team along with Minnesota’s second chance, the Wild. The NHL then moved from four divisions — Smythe, Norris, Adams and Patrick — to the six geographically named ones we see today.

But with the NHL’s reported plan, the current divisions will soon fall by the wayside as well.

The Eastern time zone will contain two seven-team conferences. Boston, Buffalo, Florida, Montreal, Ottawa, Tampa Bay and Toronto will make up one, and Carolina, New Jersey, both New York teams, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington will form the other.

Out west, Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, Los Angeles, Phoenix, San Jose and Vancouver will make up one of the eight-team conferences, while the other will contain the Central time zone teams of Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis and Winnipeg.

The problem with this realignment appears at playoff time. The top four teams in each conference will make the playoffs, and the first two rounds will be used to determine the champion of each respective conference.

Beyond that, however, the playoff format remains undecided, as the league organizers have yet to determine whether they will reseed from that point on or work based on predetermined matchups.

There has been griping over whether the Players’ Association has to pass off on the plan or not. Bettman says no; the Association says yes. The proposal received the 20 out of 30 team votes needed to pass, and there has already been speculation as to what the new conference names will be. The favorite plan seems to be the return of the pre-1999 Smythe, Norris, Adams and Patrick labels.

Regardless, this new plan will ensure one thing that this writer is happy about: We’ll get to see Pens-Flyers and Pens-Caps contests at least a combined 10 to 12 times per year. And that is never a bad thing.