The NHL schedule is the NHL schedule; there’s not much that you can do about it, so there’s no sense in complaining about its inequities.
That being said, the Red Wings are wrapping up a stretch of 3 games played in 3 different cities over the course of 4 nights tonight vs. Chicago, and, as the Free Press’s Andrew Hammond notes this morning, that schedule will repeat itself this week:
The Red Wings play their first back-to-back of the regular season [tonight]. Sunday’s game begins a four-games-in-seven-days stretch, withthree (Chicago, Washington, and Toronto) on the road while squeezing in a home game vs. the Florida Panthers.
The Red Wings at least get two days off before the Wednesday-Friday-Saturday stretch at Washington, home vs. Florida, and at Toronto…
But the Wings repeat it again in the first full week of November, playing 3 games in 3 different road cities in 5 nights…
And, over the course of the November 2nd to November 20th, the Wings play 11 games in 8 locations (including a 4-game home stand) over the course of November 19 nights.
This year’s schedule is condensed for the Olympic break’s sake, but the Wings are playing 15 games in 28 total nights, two two-day breaks included, and that is a lot of hockey to be played over a short period of time.
Chop off tonight’s game, and it’s 14 games in 24 days, which is a game every 1.71 days, which is just…Not necessary.
Between now and November 20th, the Wings are going to suffer losses and are going to suffer injuries due to the wear and tear of playing too many games in too short a period of time, and that’s just not cool.
