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Schedule preview
The Red Wings' season opens at home against the Toronto Maple Leafs, Oct. 9, and the team announced officially that it will play at Wrigley Field against the Blackhawks on New Year's Day. That's part of the slow leak of the season schedule that will come out in a complete version, Thursday.
Also, the new-fangled schedule has the Red Wings playing every team in the Eastern Conference once and three teams in a home-and-home -- Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Buffalo.
That begs the question ... is all the fuss really worth it? That opening game against Toronto will be the only meeting between the two teams in the regular season. And there'll just be one Montreal game and one Rangers game.
Personally, I didn't mind the old schedule (begin throwing fruit now) ... but if the league was going to change to more conference-vs-conference games, then why not make it home-and-homes against every team in the east? This is a watered-down solution. The NHL really needs to go all the way and make sure there are home-and-homes with every team.
It seems as though this new schedule will have a home-and-home with one team from each of three divisions in the opposite conference. That means that there will be a home-and-home with Toronto once every five years, with Montreal once every five years, etc. I'm not sure that's what NHL fans were looking for in the way of change.
Also, the new-fangled schedule has the Red Wings playing every team in the Eastern Conference once and three teams in a home-and-home -- Pittsburgh, Atlanta and Buffalo.
That begs the question ... is all the fuss really worth it? That opening game against Toronto will be the only meeting between the two teams in the regular season. And there'll just be one Montreal game and one Rangers game.
Personally, I didn't mind the old schedule (begin throwing fruit now) ... but if the league was going to change to more conference-vs-conference games, then why not make it home-and-homes against every team in the east? This is a watered-down solution. The NHL really needs to go all the way and make sure there are home-and-homes with every team.
It seems as though this new schedule will have a home-and-home with one team from each of three divisions in the opposite conference. That means that there will be a home-and-home with Toronto once every five years, with Montreal once every five years, etc. I'm not sure that's what NHL fans were looking for in the way of change.
posted by Chuck Pleiness at
3:23 PM
6 Comments:
I didn't like the old schedule. The "watered-down" one is OK, but I'm with you, I'd rather see home-and-homes for every team. They don't necessarily have to be a day or two apart either. Preferably I'd rather see them at least a month apart.
What else would you expect from a league that does everything half-a**? You would think that Bettman could talk to his NBA pals about how they do their schedule.
Well said Steve.
Gary Bettman is the reason why gas prices are so high too.
The 84 game idea is perfect. Our organization thought it up. Reduce preseason then have home and away against the East. After that, I think it was 3 against the out-of-division then 6 total against the division. Whatever added to 84. As long as its home & away against the east.
I agree - I despised the old monotonous schedule, but this is barely better. This league just can't do anything the right way - everything is half-done, lukewarm, partially committed.
You can't cross a chasm in a few tiny steps, you have to just jump across. You would think that since the lockout has established that the fans are very hard to drive away, they could actually get up the nerve to do something that fans are clamouring for - more variety!
But that would be "logic," which is in extremely short supply in this league. :(
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