Northeast
Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Msple Leafs, Boston Bruins and Hamilton.

(Here there’s potential for new rivalries while maintaining the Montreal-Boston Rivalry.)

Atlantic
New York Islanders, New York Rangers, Buffalo Sabres New Jersey Devils, Philadelphia Flyers.

(Here we can have the battle of New York State along with Philly.)

Southeast
Washington Capitals, Atlanta Thrashers, Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes and Tampa Bay Lightning.

Central
Detroit Red Wings, Pittsburgh Penguins, Columbus Blue Jackets, Chicago Blackhawks and Nashville Predators.

(Here we can enhance the Pittsburgh and Detroit rivalry.)

Northwest
Edmonton Oilers, Calgary Flames, Minnesota Wild, Colorado Avalanche and Vancouver Canucks.

Southwest
Anaheim Ducks, Dallas Stars, St.Louis Blues, Los Angeles Kings and San Jose Sharks.

(Dallas and St.Louis are about the travel distance when heading to California.)

Definitely an interesting problem. I guess we’ll have to wait and see.

I think the best thing for the NHL to do would be to let Balsillie have the Coyotes leaving KC as a fallback destination for any other team that needs to move thus keeping the league at 30 teams which to me is better than bumping up to 32 due to the dilution factor. However I don’t think that’s what’s going to happen because if the Coyotes do come to Hamilton only Toronto and Buffalo would get paid off. Instead if the Coyotes stay in PHX or move to say KC instead the league could later grant Hamilton a very expensive expansion team where all franchises could pocket millions of dollars. That’s what I think will happen with a 32nd team to come a few years later when the recession is over and hopefully with all the troubled teams sorted out.

As for your original point of how the league would look if the Coyotes do move to Hamilton. It seems according to Balsillie’s application as if they will play in the Northwest Division with Colorado sliding over to the empty spot in the Pacific. While that means a lot of travel, this would be great in a way for Hamilton because at least they would have 3 other Canadian teams in their division to play against. This would probably be a good thing for Canadian TV double headers because you would have a team based in the East playing a lot of late road games in the West. Imagine a Toronto-Montreal game early and then a Hamilton-Edmonton game late with a heavier built in eastern audience staying up late to watch their hometown Tigers or whatever they will be called. I also think this might be the best way to go because the only way to get Hamilton into the Eastern Conference (without realigning everything) would result in at least 3 other teams having to move divisions in addition to Colorado already going to the Pacific. An example of this would be: Hamilton would move to the NE Division, Boston would slide over to the Atlantic Division, New Jersey would move to the the SE Division with Atlanta being bumped to the Western Conference. You now have the usual three 5 team division format in the EC. Atlanta is now in the Central Division with say Columbus or Chicago forced to move to the Northwest to fill the spot vacated by Hamilton . In that example you could bring Colorado back to the NW as well and move Vancouver into the Pacific to make a closer geographical division to help address Columbus or Chicago’s travel situation. That’s a lot of teams moving and losing rivals so that won’t go over too well. Probably easier to just make Hamilton have a heavy travel load since Colorado should be happy with the change by making out pretty good in the Pacific playing more against the California based teams and an old playoff nemesis in Dallas instead of playing Edmonton, Vancouver & Calgary all the time.

Good luck getting a another team up there, you guys deserve it and I think the league as a whole will be better off with a 7th team in Canada. I don’t know whether Balsillie is going to pull off getting the Coyotes but this should open the NHL’s eyes to the viability of Hamilton as an NHL market. The NHL needs another owner like Balsillie so they should just give a team one way or another and get it over with already.

Winnipeg and Quebec are nostalgic choices, but in the end unfeasible. There just isn’t any major corporate money in Manitoba. The only viable place to put a team is in southwestern Ontario since there is loads of people, corporate money and apathy towards Toronto. The existing football rivalry between the Toronto Argonauts and Hamilton Tiger Cats shows there is definitely some fertile ground to establish rivalries.

I really do hope you guys get another team up there (Canada deserves at least one more) but it’s hard for me to see it happening anywhere other than Hamilton (that mainly due to Balsillie’s $$$). Winnipeg has no one with the bucks to own a team that I know of and a rink built for a minor league team. Quebec City has an old rink and would have that same old problem of attracting free agents with the heavy French environment there. Despite living in Miami I started off as a WHA fan (B’ham Bulls adopted the Oilers after the Bulls folded) and miss the Jets and Nordiques but I just don’t see the NHL returning to those cities anytime soon if ever.

If Bettman manages to keep the Coyotes in PHX I think a good (and right) thing to do would be to award Balsillie an expansion team for 2010-11. That would pretty much end franchise poaching. In this a economy who other than Balsillie could afford to go through the process it takes to buy a team and move it. A few years after that they could give AEG an expansion team for Kansas City to get up to the “holy grail” of 32 teams.