Keep the Divisions, go 1-8 seeding within each Conference with guarantee of home ice in round one for Division winners. Balance the schedule however you want to minimize whinging. I’d be OK with ditching the bracket and re-seeding after each round, but it could potentially slow things down, so I’m lukewarm on that. But, if you went 1-8 with a perk for Division winners, you’d eliminate all but one gifted/accidental advantage … and the gift would be a reward for winning the Division which keeps teams engaged and honest late in the season.
What they’re trying to do is build rivalries within Divisions that are artificially constructed. It’s not working because fans just get sick of the same old matchups all the time, just like they did back in the old days. Quite trying to reinvent the wheel and stick to basics. 1-8 is fair and rightly values the regular season. What you’ve got now is contrived and doesn’t. They could also just kill divisions entirely for all I care. They ruined any logic when they split the southeastern and northeastern teams anyway.
What they’re trying to do is build rivalries within Divisions that are artificially constructed. It’s not working because fans just get sick of the same old matchups all the time, just like they did back in the old days. Quite trying to reinvent the wheel and stick to basics. 1-8 is fair and rightly values the regular season. What you’ve got now is contrived and doesn’t. They could also just kill divisions entirely for all I care. They ruined any logic when they split the southeastern and northeastern teams anyway.
