Lowell to Albany is Official

One of the worst-kept secrets in the league was confirmed yesterday, as the New Jersey Devils officially announced that they were moving their AHL affiliate from Lowell to Albany.

The Devils had been in Lowell since the 2006-07 season, and the Albany market had become available when the River Rats franchise had been sold and moved to Charlotte, North Carolina earlier this spring. Ironically, before New Jersey installed its prospects in Lowell, the Devils had been the River Rats’ NHL affiliate for the first 13 years of Albany’s existence. The River Rats name apparently is going to stay in mothballs, as the new Albany incarnation will maintain the “Devils” moniker.

The interesting thing will be how this affects the divisional alignment in the Eastern Conference. Charlotte will obviously go into the East Division, to be with Norfolk, Hershey, etc., and the Devils could conceivably stay in the Wolf Pack’s Atlantic Division, as the travel between Albany and the Atlantic Division cities is very reasonable. I think it’s more likely, though, that the Devils will want to be in the East, to be in the same division with traditional Albany rivals Adirondack, Syracuse and Binghamton.