[Sylvanfan]

Yeah, if they still kept Divisions and gave the Division winners the 1-2 seeds, it's not that different than what it used to be. Although with only 2 Divisions it would make it so that the top two teams didn't meet up in round two if they were from the Same Division.

Part of the idea was to build rivalries, but they did also want to limit travel a bit in the first two rounds for Western teams. Less Central/Pacific time zone matchups in round one. But that can go by the way side easily enough if you were to end up with a San Jose and Dallas first round match up. Likewise the Flames can get to Minny or Denver as quickly as they can to Vegas, and quicker than they can get to California.

I'd be curious to know if there was more or less travel for teams if they tried to split the West into a North and South, say Seattle, Vancouver, Calgary, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Colorado, Minnesota, Chicago in the North and San Jose, Los Angeles, Anaheim, Arizona, Las Vegas, St.Louis, Dallas, Nashville in the South. I think the current format likely works better, but it would be an interesting comparison.