Trips to face the newly relocated franchise in St. John’s, Newfoundland will be featured on the Bruins’ Providence (AHL) farm club’s 2011-12 schedule after the league announced its realignment today.

The Eastern and Western Conference of the American Hockey League will both have three divisions, expanding from two.

Providence will play in the Atlantic Division along with Winnipeg’s St. John’s affiliate, San Jose’s affiliate in Worcester, Los Angeles’ Manchester farm club and Phoenix’s new affiliate Portland. Previous Providence division rivals Springfield and Connecticut will now be skating in the Northeast Division.

The league also formally announced that eight teams will qualify for the playoffs in each conference, with the division winners being seeded one through three. The conference quarterfinals will be best-of-five, while the rest of the Calder Cup Playoffs will be best-of-seven series. The teams will re-seed after the first round.