NHL Alignment... Four Conferences. Really?

This new NHL realignment is really a joke. Four... FOUR... conferences??

Ok, I admit, I think it would be pretty awesome to have a possible Leafs-Habs Stanley Cup final but still... 4 conferences? What were they thinking? What are they going to name them? Revive those old names? Smyth? Campbell? Wales? Or new names? Sittler? Richard? Yzerman? Something just doesn't sit well with four conferences!

So, here are some of my previous realignment solutions...

Part 1
Part 2
Part 3


It's great to have every team play each other twice. Frankly, as a Leafs fan... I would like to see more Leafs vs Wings or Hawks and we don't see enough Columbus or St. Louis.

I don't think there's any problem with East and West Conference and 2 divisions each set u[... Really, the simple solution should be this

East Conference
Great Lakes (or keep Northeast): Buffalo, Boston, Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto
Atlantic: Carolina, Florida, New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers, New York Islander, Tampa Bay, Washington

West Conference
Central: Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Minnesota, Nashville, St. Louis, Winnipeg
Pacific: Anaheim, Calgary, Colorado, Edmonton, LA, Phoenix, San Jose, Vancouver

So, if Phoenix gets moved to Quebec or wherever, they can be placed into the division with Toronto and Montreal.
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Each team play it's division team 6 times, (35 games for East and 40 for West), they play teams in the other division within the conference 4 times (28 for East and 32 for West), play each team in the other division once (16 for East and 14 for West). With the 3 games left for the East, they can be randomly for rivalries. So teams like Leafs, Habs, and Bruins would get the opportunity to play one more game against Hawks, Wings and one team.

Or

Each team can still play each other twice (58 games) and play 1 more game against team in the other division in the conference (7 or 8 games, total 65-66 games) and the rest of the games are left for division play (17 for East and 16 for West).

The playoff format would be like this. In each conference, the division winners will be placed 1st and 2nd accordingly to points. From 3rd to 8th, will be positioned by standing. And in each round, home ice will be determined via point standing in regular season.

Now, an alternative solution could be top 4 team in each division head into playoffs. They play within division playoffs and then winner of each division within the conference play each other and winner of that will play for the cup.

See? Easy simple solution...