Flyers just uh, well, let's just say Holmgren fell off his rocker?

Bruins will open the season against the Flyers,to bad would love to have been Montreal having to watch them raise the banner:-)

Or Vancouver.:-)

That was some crazy chit today.

Clearing space for Bryz, $51 over 9 years.

He may be a good goalie, but I think Philly gave away way too much to clear the space. :-)

I heard the Bruins are 8-1 odds on winning the Cup next year.

I was hoping for the Habs too, but Philly isn't a bad replacement and TB is game #2 :-)

I completely agree, Carter and Richards gone and they don't get much in return leaves me scratching my head. Bryzgolav is a good goalie but I thought they had their goalie of the future in Boborovsky. He played awful in the playoffs but give the guy a break he is 23 and was a rookie. I don't see how they improved overall in the deal.

Flyers not only give up two pretty good players,but also leadership,it will be interesting how this plays out :-)

I blame Chris Pronger.

Major realignment coming for 2012-13 season?

2 Conferences (15 teams each)
4 Divisions the Pacific, Midwest, East and South. (two with 8, two with 7) home-and-home against teams outside their division and top 4 from each division are in the playoffs.

Including Detroit and Columbus moving EAST!

http://aol.sportingnews.com/nhl/stor...2ef7b2662ee2e8

Eastern Conference:

Eastern Division:
Boston
Buffalo
Detroit
Montreal
NY Rangers
NY Islanders
Toronto
Ottawa

Southern Division:
Carolina
Florida
New Jersey
Philadelphia
Pittsburgh
Tampa Bay
Washington


Western Conference

Mid-West Division:
Chicago
Colorado
Columbus
Dallas
Minnesota
Nashville
St. Louis

Pacific Division:
Anaheim
Calgary
Edmonton
Los Angeles
Phoenix
San Jose
Vancouver
Winnipeg

I didn't know how they planned to move both Detroit and Columbus east, but if only Detroit goes, I think this will be how it shakes out. :-)

Re-alignment issues aside, I'm curious how they will justify the 7 division teams having a better shot of making it into the top 4 than the 8 division teams.

Why not just take the top 2 or top 3 from each division and have the remaining 4 or 2 spots be "wild cards" for the remaining best records within the conference?

Man o man...I went to a concert last night and heard about this there. I can't figure it. I figured they were going to move Carter as they needed cap space, but didn't see them trading Richards. Wow.

The new NHL team in Winnipeg will go with what the city's original team was named -- the Winnipeg Jets, sources told ESPN.com Friday.

The team is expected to announce it Friday night at the NHL draft in St. Paul, Minn.


Ever since the announcement that the Atlanta Thrashers were moving to Winnipeg, fans have debated what to call the team. The overwhelming choice has been Jets -- what the team was called before it moved to Phoenix in 1996 and became the Coyotes. Other options included Winnipeg Falcons, Manitoba Falcons, and Manitoba Moose, which was the name of the AHL team there

You could always contract Phoenix and Florida to make all 4 divisions have 7 teams. Then you could have a contraction draft to allow the remaining teams to pick up the talent. :-)

I heard Bettman is for expansion to 32 teams in the near future, not contraction.

That's possibly the worst idea ever.

Although I don't mind Bettman's realignment plan (minus expansion), here's my take on ditching conferences altogther and picking 4 divisions. Top 16 teams by points, wins, h2h, etc make it into the playoffs. 1 vs 16, 2 vs 15, etc. Home & home vs everyone, 2 x h&h for division, split up the rest of the games.

Here's my idea of the 4 divisions...

Great Lakes
BUF
CHI
CLB
DET
MIN
MTL
OTT
TOR

Western
ANA
CAL
EDM
LA
PHX
SJ
VAN
WIN

Atlantic
BOS
NJ
NYI
NYR
PHI
PIT
WAS


Southern
CAR
COL
DAL
FLA
NSH
STL
TB

Take a look at this fan-map. It's where I derived my divisions from. Note, Winnipeg is still listed as ATL and please forgive the stupid title, I didn't create it.

Image

That would be fun, Mike, if they are gonna re-align, go big time. :-)

Don't think it's too likely though. :-)