It's a trip that every Eastern Conference team dreaded last year. It was, as Jack Edwards coined it, "The California Death March".
After hearing about it time and time again last season and to start this season, I got curious as to just how difficult a trip it was for teams.
I went back and revisited the 2013-14 season for the teams that had to make the three game trek through California and endure the brutality of three highly competitive teams. My original plan was to pull three years worth of data, but after realizing that there were no East coast to West coast trips in the lockout shortened season that idea took a hit. Then when looking at the 2011-12 season I realized that the Ducks weren't nearly as competitive as the Sharks or the Kings.
So I was left with just the data from a 2013-14 season. This leaves things a little less concrete in terms of drawing a long term conclusion about how hard this road trip was for teams, but when we get into the numbers you will see it does at least establish that this trip was brutal for the majority of teams.
In 2014-15 we are seeing teams continue to struggle against the three California squads, and last season's road trips to California definitely took their toll. Some of these statistics were very interesting when I got into them. Some made an incredible amount of sense as well.
Let's dive right in.
Overall, there were 19 teams that had to make the trek to the West. 16 of those teams played all three of Anaheim, LA, and San Jose back to back in some order, and 3 teams had to mix in a game against the Coyotes during the swing.
The overall record wasn't good. Visiting teams were 19-31-6 against the dreaded California teams on the road. That's a point percentage of just .446%, which if that were prorated over the course of an entire season you would be sandwiched in between Calgary and Edmonton in 28th place. There was a slight difference in playoff teams versus non playoff teams, as the former held a 9-13-3 record while the latter had a 13-18-3. Respectively that's a .48 point percentage and a .382 point percentage. Good enough for 25th and 29th in the 2013-14 league standings respectively. Overall that's a pretty interesting difference considering there wasn't a huge amount of "Home-ice advantage" when it came to the NHL last season. It was
roughly about 53-47 split, being that the home team won about 53% of the time. In this instance? Instead of teams having about a 47% chance of taking a game on the road, they had jus ta 33% shot at walking away with a W against one of these three teams. That is a pretty significant difference.
It's reflected strongly in the individual records of opponents as well.
Essentially, if you won ONE game against one of these three teams, that could be considered the standard.
No team swept the three California squads. Five of the 19 walked away with a winning record. Those teams were Chicago, Washington, Toronto, Philadelphia, and New Jersey.
If you are asking yourself why Pittsburgh isn't in that mix, it's because
Pittsburgh didn't even have to make the trip. Wha? That's right, Pittsburgh interestingly enough is the only East Conference team that didn't have to make the trip last year. <
>
Chicago came close to sweeping, losing in a shootout to San Jose whilst winning the other two. Washington also came close, losing a shootout decision to the Ducks.
But for the most part if you got your one win you might as well have packed it in and left for home early and got some extra rest. The odds of winning two were heavily stacked against you. Especially if you got that one win in the very first game of the trip.
The records stacked up very interestingly when it came to which games teams struggled in the most. Conventional wisdom tells you that the 3rd and final game would be the most difficult and trying right? It's the last game of a long trip, you've already played two difficult games against good teams, that 3rd one has to be brutal right? Interestingly enough, it wasn't. Here is a break down of the records in each of the three games.
1st game: 9-9-1
2nd game: 5-12-2
3rd game: 8-9-2
4th game if necessary: 1-2-0
Game one gave teams the least amount of problems, and the third game was as much of a coin flip as game one. Game two, however, was when teams got thrashed. Regularly.
The scored differentials also tell the same tale.
In game one totals the score differential was a mere 50-55, which included 9 1-goal games. Teams definitely came to the west coast ready to play, but when they ran into the realization that they had two games left after a tough game one things came off the bus a little. There is also the goaltending usage to consider. In the middle game of the three teams may have been more inclined to use their back-up tenders. For this reason, be it fatigue, mental strain, personnel differences, or what have you, the goal differential in Game 2s was a staggering 39-67. That includes only 6 games which were separated by one goal. Game 3 of the leg was a bit better but still saw a massive 36-52 scoring differential.
You also have to factor in back to back situations here. There were 12 total, and the record in back to back games was 2-9-1. Only Winnipeg and New Jersey were able to win a game on the second night of a back to back. New Jersey actually won both of them. This kind of runs with conventional wisdom that back to backs on the road are an absolute beast.
I drew the following conclusions from this:
- Without pulling every individual box score, I would say teams were more inclined to go with a backup goalie in the 2nd game of the trip.
- Game three teams definitely tried to lock it down, seeing that it had the lowest goals against of the three. It also included the most one goal games at 10.
- Fatigue definitely wore on teams, since most of these games were played in the span of 3 in 4 nights or 3 in 5. Scoring rapidly declined from game one to three.
- Back to backs suck (duh)
Finally, you might be wondering how the opposing teams fared against each of the California teams individually.
Here are the opponent records against the three California teams.
LA - 7-9-3
San Jose - 9-9-1
Anaheim - 6-11-2
So again, if you won one...particularly against the Sharks, you might as well just leave.
The game by game breakdown is also interesting from a logistical standpoint.
Los Angeles was the first game of these trips on 6 occasions and the last game of the trip on 3 occasions. For the most part LA was the middle leg of the trip. 10 times teams had to stop at Staples before heading to either San Jose or Anaheim, which from a logistical and travel standpoint makes total sense.
If you played Los Angeles first though, look out. Teams were 1-4-1 against the big, tough Kings, and that usually set a bad tone for the trips. Middle game it was 4-4-2 against, and if you met the Kings in the final game of the trip teams were 2-1-0. Which, logically, teams were playing to low scoring games in game three. Keeping scoring low, tight checking, just trying to inch out wins. That is a game that the Kings are willing to play, but can be a coin flip at times.
Anaheim wasn't fun no matter when you hit them honestly. Game 1 teams were 3-4-0, Game two teams were 1-2-0, and Game 3 teams might as well have not show up. The 8 times that teams had to play the Ducks last, opponents were 1-5-2. Clearly having to deal with the wide open style and speed of the Ducks in the final game was an arduous task.
San Jose is the one that kills me. Teams had a winning record in both games one and three. So if you started or ended the trip there teams had a good chance at winning. Game one records for opposing teams were 4-1-1 and Game three teams were 5-2-0. Not bad!
But game two, yikes. That means if you had to stop your SoCal trip and fly UP to San Jose to play, followed by coming back to SoCal, you were in trouble. Teams that hit San Jose in the middle were winless at 0-5-0. It seems like a really dumb travel schedule to have to deviate to NorCal for a single game, but it happened and it took its toll.
From these numbers I derived the true "Death March" through California. It goes as follows.
LA first
San Jose second
Finishing up with Anaheim.
Two teams had to do this trip last year. Ottawa and Tampa Bay. In a moment of truly brilliant satisfaction, it worked out that those were the only two teams of the entire 19 that did the California swing that came away winless. Both were 0-2-1 on the trip, and both were outscored heavily 3-11 and 6-11.
You can draw a lot of your own conclusions from these numbers but the bottom line altogether is that this is a BRUTAL TRIP. I know a lot of you are probably thinking, well yea we already knew that. However, there were some really interesting numbers all together when you think about styles of the different teams and which games they were played them in. If you ever hear a member from your favorite team or maybe a fellow fan, say something like "It's just like any other road trip." You kick them in the shins.
The aptly named "California Death March" is real. Now, was it a one year fluke thing? Is 2014-15 going to bring similar results? After doing the research on this I know I'll be watching carefully. If it's anything like last season, be prepared for long road trips to the sunny west coast as an opposing team or fan.
Follow me on twitter for news and notes about the Kings and the NHL
Also be sure to like HockeyBuzz on facebook!
++++I AM CURRENTLY LOOKING FOR ADVERTISERS! If you, or anyone you know would be interested in placing an ad on the blog here at HockeyBuzz then send me a PM!+++++ 
Los Angeles Kings Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»