Since I refused to play the NHL's "releasing the schedule is really a two-day news event" game, now that the full sked is out, here it is. Discuss.
Since I refused to play the NHL's "releasing the schedule is really a two-day news event" game, now that the full sked is out, here it is. Discuss.
31 comments:
Olie returns: Nov. 10.
That November road trip looks like a bit of a bitch.
It's NJD-ANA-LAK-SJS-MIN. The March one is the division + TOR. Last three games of the season are @ ATL, @ TBL, @ FLA.
Last three on the road. Hopefully, the division is wrapped up before then and the team is just jockeying for position.
Quick glance also shows 11 back-to-backs, By point of comparison, Tampa has 13 and Pittsburgh has 10.
More back-to-backs than Pitt? Fire up the outrage!
Allow me to creep into a related topic - what is the point of having divisions and then doing your playoff seeding by conference? This makes no sense at all. Either it should be one conference and a balanced schedule within conference, or it should be two divisions with the top four in each division making it.
Here's how the rest of the divison breaks out on back-to-backs:
Carolina-14
Atlanta-13
Florida-10
The interesting thing is that no one in the division plays back-to-backs in April. Remember how Carolina had to play two sets the last week of the season and we didn't have to play any? I bet Rutherford had something to say to the schedulers about that.
@ JR: I'd love to see them go to two divisions (especially if the Caps are back with old Patrick rivals) with divisional playoff winners meeting in the Conference finals. That, Mr. Gary, is how you make rivalries, not by playing opponents eight times in a year.
First digestion: I hate this schedule. 18 of 24 division games after Jan 1. 12 of 24 division games in the last SIX WEEKS. Since when did the idea become. Yes, it's great to finish with divisional games, but not to the point where you 8 divisional games in the first four months of the season. There is no real penalty for sucking for four months if you play great the last 6 weeks.
first two months look the toughest: 14 of 25 on the road, CALG-PHX-DAL is a whopper, plus the Cali trip, but the last month of the season we play no 07-08 playoff teams
1) Of course rivalries are aided by geographical proximity. Something the Caps don't have with any of their divisional rivals, but do with their old Patrick foes.
2) We'd much prefer a 2 conference, or at least consolidate into 2 divisions in each conference over the current format, especially as jr. writes come playoff time seeding is done for the conference anyway. Only finishing in 1st matters, else divisional placement is meaningless
Puck Daddy's got a list of 10 can't miss games for next season now and Caps are on there twice.
My spreadsheet shows:
13 - B2B
44 - 2 games in 3 days
12 - 3 games in 4 days
37 - 3 games in 5 days
12 - 4 games in 6 days
5 games is the longest road trip (twice):
November 15 - 24 (NJD/ANH/LAK/SJ/MIN)
March 16 - 24 (ATL/FLA/TBL/CAR/TOR)
5 games is also the longest homestand
February 18-26 (MTL/COL/PIT/PHI/ATL)
I'm trying to put together some more scheduling quirks in my spreadsheet. If anyone's interested in something specific, let me know.
All this intense "schedule analysis" shows folks are a little bit hard up for something to do.
It's called the offseason, Holmes. Welcome.
@ jr:
Well, the Caps sucked for most even two months and then needed to go on a serious long run, and every point just to get in, even as a majority of late season games were against division foes.
Throw in the headache of more and more 3 point affairs in the latter part of the season, and there's certainly no room for lengthy error.
Other interesting notes:
2 Home and Home series
April 5/7 - Caps/Thrash
April 14/15 - Caps/Devils
--------------------
5 straight against division March 14-March 21 (4 of the 5 at home)
4 straight against division to end the year, April 5-April 11 (3 of 4 on road)
Otherwise, we play back to back games against the division only 3 times in the year.
--------------------
No night games followed immediately by day games.
The better team will win. It's that simple.
@Rage-I don't think there's an April 14/15 back-to-back. The season ends on the 11th. Unless you're predicting the opening round of the playoffs.
1) OOPs. He probably meant November 14/15 against the Devils?
The single-personality, multi-personed Faux is correct. I did mean November 14/15 against the Devils.
I wonder how teams work it out with the league in choosing their 3 "select" games vs. the Western Conference? On the one hand, playing two games each against Nashville, Columbus and LA won't stir up huge interest when they roll into town, but for the Caps, it's three games against teams that may not be the stiffest of competition.
How many day games two days following a night game two time zones away where the plane had to stop for refueling and the in-flight movie was a thumbs-down (and the pretzels were stale)?
...and against a division rival whose trainer has B.O.?
I'd like to propose a west coast road trip. Anyone who wants to fly out to vegas and meet me and go see the games in anaheim, LA, and san jose? I'll definitely be visiting my Caps when they are out here.
If we're talking about divisions, I have a simple solution (Time for my two cents.)
Toss Nashville in the Southeast, move us to the Atlantic, put the Rangers in the NE or whatever it's called, and throw the Leafs back in the Central with the Wings. RIVALRIES RESOLVED.
Not many Saturday games...weak-sauce for certain geographically challenged Caps fans here.
BTW JP, my office has installed a new web filtering program and this blog is indexed as a "personal or social networking site" and is thus banned. I am missing out on these conversations and am losing my mind at work. DAHHHHH
@ Breed: You can usually get around that by subscribing to the site feed in Google Reader of Bloglines. Not sure on commenting, though. There's a Firefox extension that lets you see a full post in Google Reader. Maybe it lets you comment, too.
I like that little stretch where they've got 5 games home, 1 on the road (Boston), then 4 more at home.
Feb 18 - March 8.
Good time to make some hay
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