National Hockey League Reshuffles the Division Deck.

• Author: Barrett, Wayne M.

For the first time in its 80-year history, the National Hockey League has gone to a two-conference, six-division alignment. The revised setup became necessary because of the NHL's continued expansion.

With the addition of the Nashville Predators this season, the league is bulging with 27 franchises. Atlanta, Minnesota, and Columbus (Ohio) are to follow suit over the next two years. Ottawa (Senators), Florida (Panthers), Tampa Bay (Lightning), Anaheim (Mighty Ducks), and San Jose (Sharks) have joined the fold during the 1990s. Moreover, there have been relocations to Carolina (the Hurricanes were the Hartford Whalers), Colorado (the Avalanche were the Quebec Nordiques), Dallas (the Stars were the Minnesota North Stars), and Phoenix (the Coyotes were the Winnipeg Jets).

There's been an obvious shift away from the sparsely populated small-market Canadian hinterlands (where hockey's minor leagues still thrive) into large, warm-weather American cites which boast burgeoning affluent markets. Such is the price of success.

To the league's credit, although the number of teams continues to rise, playoff participation has not. At the dawn of the decade, 16 of 21 clubs qualified for the post-season. Today, it's 16 of 27. In the new millennium, it will be 16 of 30. Kudos for making the long (82-game) regular season more meaningful. Teams with losing records no longer waltz into the Stanley Cup tournament the way they once did. Remember, the pre-expansion NHL (1942-66) admitted four of six teams into the playoffs. After the league doubled in size by adding six new clubs in 1967, it was eight of 12 for the tourney.

During that watershed 1967-68 campaign, the NHL had to break itself into two divisions, East and West. The league previously had two divisions--the American and Canadian--way back when, 1926-42.

Occupying the East in 1967 were the "original" six: New York Rangers, Boston Bruins, Chicago Black Hawks, Detroit Red Wings, Montreal Canadiens, and Toronto Maple Leafs. Residing in the West were the six new expansion franchises: Oakland Seals, Philadelphia Flyers, St. Louis Blues, Pittsburgh Penguins, Los Angeles Kings, and Minnesota North Stars.

But as the league kept adding teams through expansion and absorption of the old World Hockey Association, a static two-division arrangement simply wouldn't do, so the concept of conferences was born. And the NHL hierarchy really hit upon a unique idea: they named the two new conferences, as well as the two...