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As you know the NHL released the schedules for all 30 NHL teams on Friday. Unlike during the previous season, inter-conference play has returned and every team will play in every building. Outside of the two Florida teams playing in the old Northeast Division the conference realignment makes more geographical sense. Winnipeg is no longer in the Southeast Division and Detroit/Columbus are no longer in the Western Conference.
In addition to the normal NHL schedule,
Dirk Hoag of the On the Forecheck Nashville Predator’s blog has terrifically put together a very interesting look at the NHL schedule. He has totaled up the amount of miles that each team will travel in the 2012-2013 as well the number of back to back games each team has. He also has data from the 2011-2012 season and 2010-2011 (2012-2013 skipped because of lockout).
Here is the Penguins data from the past few seasons:
As you can see the Penguins have now seen an increase in the amount of miles they travel for the upcoming season. This certainly has to do with playing in every building in the league. However, the Penguins are still a full 4,000 miles under the league average.
The Penguins are mildly above average in the amount of back to back games they play in. Playing in the same division as both New York teams and New Jersey makes it more conducive to having back to back games. The amount of back to back games that the Penguins will take part in amounts to around 40% of their schedule. Only the Devils, Islanders, Blackhawks, and Hurricanes have more back to back games. The Bruins, Blue Jackets, Canadiens, Canucks, and Capitals all have the same amount of back to back games as Pittsburgh.
If I had to pick the easiest traveling schedule in the NHL it would be the New York Rangers. They will travel the least amount of miles with 29,839. Given the cluster of teams in its geographical area the Rangers, Devils, and Islanders will always have low travel mileage, that isnt in their control. It is the below average back to back games total that makes the Rangers schedule the easiest. They play in only 13 back to back games. Only Tampa Bay has less back to back games (12) in the Eastern Conference.
Toughest travel schedule belongs to the San Jose Sharks. They will travel 57,612 miles this upcoming season. The Coyotes are the only other team in the league who will travel at least 50,000 miles (52,633). Helping out the Sharks is their league low number of back to back games (10). Even with that low number of back to back games they are still logging significantly more miles than any team in the league. The Sharks will travel a full 20,000 miles more than the Pittsburgh Penguins this year.
All in all the Penguins have a favorable travel schedule. Given the division they play in, they always will. The Penguins don’t have any control over their travel dynamic (no team does), but it certainly doesn’t hurt during free agency to have that favorable travel schedule.
If you want to take a look at the NHL travel schedule on a game by game basis Dirk Hoag has also put together a google spreadsheet with all that information that you can find
here.
That’s all for now
Thanks for reading!
You can find my non-Penguin related articles over at
HockeyHurts.com
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