The Alberta teams in the Central would just add the travel woes these teams already face. It would suck for the Alberta teams and the other teams in that division. Players already avoid some of these cities because of the crappy travel and making it worse won't help.
It's hard to conquer the NHL geography though. With big gaps between markets, there is always going to be some odd alignments. That's one of the reasons why I liked a team in Arizona... it helped balance the league a little. SLC shouldn't change that a lot, so I don't see why moving there would necessitate re-alignment. I wonder if the new owner is making it part of the deal to relocate the team. Maybe they see a better business model competing in the Pacific and the league is will to screw other teams to make it happen.
Hopefully one day, there are teams in places like Phoenix and Portland, because that would probably help balance things better.
At this point, I would be more in favour of getting rid of divisions completely and just have 2 conferences.
__________________
"A pessimist thinks things can't get any worse. An optimist knows they can."
|