Toronto Maple Leafs: How NHL Realignment Might Effect the Standings

The Toronto Maple Leafs might be in the Western Conference this year.

As a part of an all-Canadian Division, the Toronto Maple Leafs will more or less be moving into the pacific division due to the  Covid mandated realignment that the NHL will have this year in order to limit travel and keep players safe.

While there hasn’t been any announcement about how the NHL playoffs may be organized this season, this week saw some rumours from Pierre Lebrun shed some light on potential realignment.

In recent days we’ve been exploring how the Leafs would stack up against the other teams in their new division, and today we will look at how some of the other new divisions will shake out.

Toronto Maple Leafs and NHL Realignment

To me, the team that benefits the most from this realignment  is the Toronto Maple Leafs, and I’m not just saying that because they are the team this site exclusively covers.  The Leafs were previously in a division with three of the best teams in the NHL, and now they move to one where their supremacy is unopposed.

In the Atlantic division, the Leafs have to either win the division or face one of the best teams in the league in the first round.  In the new situation, they should walk a Canadian division and face the easiest possible first round opponent.

Boston also benefits greatly from the new division alignments.  They are in the same situation as the Leafs, and as the Leafs age into their primes and the Bruins age out of theirs, the teams are reversing roles. This new division might be weaker than it at first appears, because Boston, Pittsburgh and Washington are the old guard who is starting to fade, the Flyers might be the best other team here, and the rest of the division is a question mark.

Buffalo, New York, Long Island and New Jersey could all be anywhere from truly brutal to surprise team of the year, and the overall weakness of this division could really help a team like the Sabres who are probably going to get it together eventually.

Tampa leaves a division with three of the six best teams, but now has to compete with Carolina.  Toronto and Boston have it easier, but this is still an improvement for Tampa because other than Carolina this is a super weak division. Minnesota should have no problem taking third, and the rest of this group is terrible.

The final division is the new best division in the NHL, featuring two of the six contenders, and two of the better almost-contenders, it is now the new Atlantic Division. Colorado and Las Vegas along with Dallas and St. Louis will be duking it out in this battle royale for NHL supremacy.  Dallas is inevitably going to be overrated after a super-fluky playoffs, but don’t sleep on Anaheim or LA, two teams on the rise, while the Sharks, if they can get healthy, could be quite a bit better than people seem to think (never count out Erik Karlsson from taking back his best-defenseman in the NHL title).

Overall, this realignment really benefits the former Atlantic Contenders, but the true impact won’t be known until the NHL puts out its playoff format.  If the Canadian division is treated like the Pacific Division and put in the Western Conference with no possibility of a pre-Final crossover, then the West (Toronto, Vegas, Colorado, St, Louis, Dallas, Edmonton) is probably quite a bit stronger.