New NHL Division Names: Breaking Down League's New Alignment

The NHL not only released its schedule for the 2013-14 season Friday, but it announced the new division names and alignments that will certainly shake up the landscape of the league for years to come, per ESPN.

The new format sees the Western Conference split into two seven-team divisions, which will be called the Pacific Division and the Central Division, while the Eastern Conference will be split into two eight-team divisions, the Metropolitan Division and the Atlantic Division.

Here's the full breakdown of the new divisions.  

Pacific Division	Central Division	Metropolitan Division	Atlantic Division
Anaheim	Chicago	Carolina	Boston
Calgary	Colorado	Columbus	Buffalo
Edmonton	Dallas	New Jersey	Detroit
Los Angeles	Minnesota	NY Islanders	Florida
Phoenix	Nashville	NY Rangers	Montreal
San Jose	St. Louis	Philadelphia	Ottawa
Vancouver	Winnipeg	Pittsburgh	Tampa Bay
		Washington	Toronto

New Playoff Format

With the new focus on divisions, the playoffs are about to receive a serious facelift. Qualifying for the postseason will now be heavily influenced by the divisional alignment, as the top three teams in each division will be awarded a playoff spot, per NHL.com. 

The final two spots in each conference will go to the teams with highest regular-season point total. The top divisional champion will be matched up against the wild-card team with the fewest points, while the No. 2 divisional champion will meet the top wild-card team. 

The second- and third-place finishers in each division will play each other for a conference championship berth.

The new system is definitely a bit more complicated than the old one. But it should make for an interesting playoff race as new rivalries develop with this new format. 

Notable Moves

The realignment doesn't come without some major moves for some of the league's 30 franchises. 

Among the most notable moves are the Detroit Red Wings and Columbus Blue Jackets heading to the Eastern Conference. In the short term, that's a pretty big deal for the newly formed Metropolitan Division, as both teams were strong last season—the Red Wings were the No. 7 seed in the Western Conference and the Blue Jackets just missed the playoffs. 

It's also a pretty good boost to every Western Conference team's chances of qualifying for the postseason, as they have two less teams to worry about. Over half of the Western Conference's teams will make the playoffs every year. 

Scheduling Impact

As you might have guessed by now, the schedule will be very division-centric. The full schedule can be found at NHL.com, but the basic breakdown is as follows:

• All 30 teams will play in all 30 NHL arenas at least once during the season
• Western Conference teams will mostly play 29 games within their division: five games against five teams and four games versus one team, per ESPN.
• Eastern Conference teams will play five games against two teams in the division and four games against five teams to make up 30 games of the schedule.

The changes are definitely a lot to take in, but it should provide this season with new intrigue as we find out what the strengths and weaknesses of the new system are.