This is a completely unique format that does not involve conferences and divisions at all. Each team has only 7 Rivals, but 3 of them are “A-Rivals”, who play each other 6 times per year, and the other 4 are “B-Rivals”, who play each other 4 times per year. Every other team plays each other only 2 times per year. Since the Rival teams do not have to match between set groups of teams (i.e. as with divisions), there is a tremendous variety of rivalries that could be taken advantage of with this format, and a great focus on maximizing the regular season matchups most significant to fan interest.
The diagrams below show the proposed alignment: teams whose logos are adjacent to each other are A-Rivals (6 games per year). Additional A-Rivals are shown with red lines connecting teams, and the blue lines indicate which teams are B-Rivals:
This allows each team in the league to adopt a schedule that concentrates more on matchups of interest, instead of being tied to sharing a grouping with teams who are merely rivals of their rivals. For example, currently Boston must play Ottawa more times than the New York Rangers or Philadelphia because they share a division with Montreal. The reason is that Boston’s main rival is Montreal, who is also in the same division with Ottawa, but has a much bigger rivalry with them.
Meanwhile, the Rangers are one of Boston’s next most prominent rivals, especially geographically but Boston cannot be aligned with them without losing Montreal. In this alignment, Boston gets the best of both worlds (games against teams like Montreal and Buffalo along with the Rangers, Philadelphia and other relevant opponents), while Montreal can still get more games against Ottawa, Winnipeg and others whom Boston may not consider prominent rivals.
In this format, playoff positions are determined by having each team that finished in 1st place among their A-Rivals clinch a spot automatically (it is mathematically impossible for more than 16 teams to finish in 1st place). Next, each team in 2nd place in their Rival grouping clinches a spot in order of overall record. If any team in 3rd place among their Rival group has a 2nd place team with a worse record clinch a spot, they clinch a spot as well, if there is one available. These 3rd place teams can only clinch in pairs with 2nd place teams that have worse records, to prioritize the certainty of finishing higher in one’s Rival group (for instance, if a 2nd place team clinches the last playoff spot, a 3rd place team with a better record would end up missing the playoffs if they had not already clinched).
If after all 2nd place teams have clinched a playoff spot, there are still fewer than 16 teams who have earned a spot, then the 3rd place teams with the best records remaining clinch a spot in succession. In order to heavily prioritize Rival matchups in the playoffs, but not overly at the expense of fairness, the matchups are determined by having every pair of teams that are mutually each others’ Rival with the most separation in the standings draw each other. Any remaining teams who are not Rivals with any other team remaining will draw each other: the team with the best record draws the team with the worst record, then successively again until every other team has drawn an opponent. This repeats in each round, with teams primarily drawing their Rivals that remain, with a chance of drawing any other team in the league at an approximately 80%/20% ratio.
Most supportive format for rivalry building and sustaining, as well as supporting markets in the NHL, because of the extremely relevant schedule for each team, and adherence to Rival matchups in the playoffs. Each team in the league has a good variety of relevant Rival teams;
Very good fairness, as a result of the priority for fair matchups within the constraints of prioritizing Rival series: most Rival series adhere roughly to the fairest matchups possible.
Disadvantages:
This format is the most complex of all my proposals, since teams will often be in positions where their opponent is not obvious without working out all of the other matchups, and fans would often need to know other teams’ Rivals as well as their own to follow what the playoff picture looks like;
Although the fairness of this format is very good and very consistent overall, the variation on the fairness of each matchup and even between playoff years is high, and unfair matchups often occur, though the odds decrease proportionally to how much more unfair a potential matchup is.
