2015-16 AHL season
| 2015–16 AHL season | |
|---|---|
| League | American Hockey League |
| Sport | Ice hockey |
| Total attendance | 6,693,526 |
| Regular season | |
| Macgregor Kilpatrick Trophy | Toronto Marlies |
| Season MVP | Chris Bourque |
| Top scorer | Chris Bourque |
| Playoffs | |
| Eastern Conference champions | Hershey Bears |
| Eastern Conference runners-up | Toronto Marlies |
| Western Conference champions | Lake Erie Monsters |
| Western Conference runners-up | Ontario Reign |
| Playoffs MVP | Oliver Bjorkstrand |
| Calder Cup | |
| Champions | Lake Erie Monsters |
| Runners-up | Hershey Bears |
The 2015–16 AHL season is the 80th season of the American Hockey League. The regular season began on October 9, 2015, and ended on April 17, 2016. The 2016 Calder Cup playoffs follow the conclusion of the regular season. An attendance record was set with a league average of 5,982 spectators per game, surpassing the record set in 2004–05.
On May 12, 2015, the AHL unveiled a new, major realignment of its conferences and divisions for the 2015–16 season, a move made as a result of the relocations of seven franchises, including five teams moving to California, one to Manitoba, and one to Newfoundland and Labrador. Mirroring a change the National Hockey League had taken prior to its 2013–14 season, the AHL moved back to having four divisions of seven or eight teams. The Eastern Conference consists of the Atlantic and North Divisions, while the Western Conference consists of the Central and Pacific Divisions.
On June 13, the league commissioner, David Andrews, disclosed that the five California teams would each play 68-game schedule; the other 25 teams (including the two Texas-based teams that share the Pacific division with the California teams) would play 76 games apiece. The implementation of an unbalanced format was seen as a way to ease the California teams' travel costs as well as reducing stretches of 3 games in 3 nights, which can impede player development and hamper attractive forms of play.
To alleviate the 68/76-game imbalance, the AHL began using an alternative method of ranking its teams and determining playoff seeds. As before, standings points are still awarded (two points for a win, one point for an overtime or shootout loss, none for a regulation loss) but rather than ranking teams by the total amount of points earned, they are positioned by their points percentage, determined as the number of points earned divided by points available to them. For example, a team earning one win and one overtime loss after two games would have a .750 points percentage (3 points earned divided by 4 points available).
In support of the new division, the AHL played an outdoor game called the Golden State Hockey Rush at Raley Field in West Sacramento, California on December 18, 2015. The defeated the Bakersfield Condors 3–2 in front of 9,357 fans.
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