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Realignment leaves Leafs coach Carlyle scratching his head

Randy Carlyle

Toronto Maple Leafs hockey head coach Randy Carlyle gestures during a news conference in Toronto, Tuesday, April 10, 2012. A letter to fans posted on the Leafs’ website Monday asks for forgiveness after the team missed the playoffs for the seventh straight year. (AP Photo/The Canadian Press, Chris Young)

AP

Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Randy Carlyle is no big fan of realignment.

Or, at the very least, he’s confused by it.

“It makes it more difficult for us to qualify for the playoffs,” Carlyle said today, per the Globe and Mail’s James Mirtle. “It makes you scratch your head - why is that?”

Starting this season, the Leafs will be in the Atlantic Division with seven other teams -- the Boston Bruins, Buffalo Sabres, Detroit Red Wings, Florida Panthers, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, and Tampa Bay Lightning.

There will be one other eight-team division (the Metropolitan Division) in the Eastern Conference. Meanwhile, the Western Conference will be comprised of two seven-team divisions, the Central and the Pacific.

Eight teams from each conference will make the playoffs.

So Carlyle does have a point -- if the Leafs are to qualify for the postseason, they’ll have to beat out more teams than their Western Conference counterparts.

If it were up to Carlyle, he’d probably have kept Detroit in the West; however, Wings ownership had for years been pushing the league for a move to the East (for good reason).

Columbus is the other team that moved from the West to the East as part of realignment, with Winnipeg going the opposite way.

If it makes Carlyle feel any better, we hear the Pacific Division might have a new team soon.

Realignment