Schedule is out, schedule is out

View it here on NHL.com

Things that jump out

• Last year the NHL had all the teams end the season with a string of division games that set the stage for close finishes and exciting play. That is not the case this year, as just 4 of the Penguins last 20 games are against division opponents.
• So you'd think there'd be a huge chunk of divisional games somewhere in the middle, but there's not. Pittsburgh's longest streak of division games is just 3. By contrast, they'll host 3 straight western conference teams once over the course of the season. The idea to de-emphasize divisional matchups and let every team play every other team atleast once seems to have inserted some color and excitement in the schedule.
• Starting Sunday February 8th with the Red Wings coming to town, the Penguins are scheduled on Sundays six of the next seven weekends with matchups against Washington (twice), Dallas, Boston and Philadelphia. Any of those could be targets for nationally televised NBC broadcasts.
• The Penguins were lucky to play all but 5 games the Eastern time zone last season. That will not be the case this year. Throw out the Sweden trip and they're making west coast jogs to San Jose and Phoenix (in late October), Colorado (in January) and Dallas (in March). Nothing that will make the West coast teams cry, but the Pens will certainly earn some frequent flyer miles this season.
• Perhaps as a reward, there's a stretch of games starting March 8th (at the friendly confines of the Verizon Center in DC) to April 1st where the Pens play 10 out of 12 home games. The only other roadie during that time is the short trip over to Columbus.
• We touched on the European trip, last year we thought the NHL did Anaheim the injustice of making them play three more road games before going home, after they'd already been to England. That seemed excessive and perhaps took it's toll on them. This year the Penguins get almost a full week off after their Euro trip and then don't have an away game for another 10 days. Much more favorable, we'd say.
• The season finale is a game IN Montreal on Saturday night. You think the NHL is thinking that maybe it could be to decide the #1 seed in the Eastern Conference?

There will be plenty of time to pour over the schedule and offer oberservations, but that's what jumped out for the nowbeing.

Schedule details released

The full schedule is officially announced tomorrow, but the NHL has released some highlights for teams

For the Pens:
--They open the season with games in Sweden against Ottawa. Not exactly news
--The home opener at Mellon Arena is set to be Saturday October 11th, against Martin Brodeur and the New Jersey Devils
--This year there are "at large" teams from the Western Conference that the Pens will play twice. It's going to be San Jose, Columbus and the treacherous Marian Hossa led Red Wings.

The preseason schedule was also announced:
Saturday, Sept. 20 TAMPA BAY 7:30 p.m.
Monday, Sept. 22 at Tampa Bay 7:30 p.m.
Wednesday, Sept. 24 TORONTO 7:30 p.m
Friday, Sept. 26 at Toronto 7:30 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 2 at Jokerit (Finland) 11:30 a.m. (Eastern time)

Nice to see a home and home with Pittsburgh South.

Full details of the 2008-09 schedule and analysis tomorrow.

Nope, nothing going on here

Welcome to day two of a three day minivacation for the Penguins. This month started off with 7 games in 14 days and then this little breather...But don't get to used to it, the NHL's hottest team plays 3 games in the next 4 days starting Friday.

Great excuse to use this picture.

It pays to be a commenter, We're going to do a little digging on a very popular recent post about the depth of a "rental" acquisition. We'll dig through and put some analysis up on deadline-type trades over the past 10 or so years. We really have no idea where this will turn out, and no bias that we hope the conclusions point to. Just expect a lot of data on how these things turn out. As in

• how long the "buyers" advance in the playoffs, and if the sacrifice was worth it
• the percent of "rentees" that stay in their new homes
• the return of what the "sellers" get, i.e how did they develop the young players and prospects and draft picks they got in return. It's not only about value it's what an organ-eye-zation can do with it.

If you have any other ideas or angles that this should be approached from, feel free to let it be heard in the comments.

There’s also something in the works for the goalie situation when Marc-Andre Fleury makes his return from injury (which might take longer than you think).

New Schedule

As you've probably heard, the NHL announced the long expected change to the scheduling of games to start next season.

It's kind of like (but not exactly) what I proposed back in September:

Every team plays a home and home with the other conference (15 x 2 =30 games). Each team plays their 4 division opponents 6 times: 3 at home, 3 away (6 x 4 = 24 games). Each team plays their other 10 conference opponents 3 times: 2 home, 1 away one year. flipped the next (10 x 3 = 30 games)

My idea was the exact thing the players association proposed, though I doubt they stole it from me....

What the NHL has approved though did not add two more games (as me and the players came up with), so not every team will visit every city every year. But at least it's every other year and not some weird once every three years thing like in the past. Here's the new and "improved" format:

Eeach team play[s] 24 divisional games, 40 in-conference matchups, 15 games against non-conference teams and three wild card games against out of conference teams.

This de-emphasizes the divisional matchups; a team will only play them 6 times (instead of the current 8) but the out-of-division conference matchups remain at 4. I suppose this is a good change, it's not fun to sit through 8 games against the Devils or Islanders. And it's really not fun for teams in the Pacific division or Southeast who don't really have natural "regional" rivals. Yeah, those Washington-Miami matchups and Phoenix-Dallas ones just don't hit the spot eight times a year.

But this doesn't accomplish what the fans wanted: the chance to see every team (and the marquee players) come to your city once a year. Sure this change is an improvement over the current setup--now it will be every other year, but it's a change that doesn't really satisfy any of the principals. So what's the point?

And I'm curious to see how the "wildcard" games are allotted. Will a strong team with a strong fanbase (like, say Detroit) be playing a marquee out-of-conference game (such as Ottawa) for the sake of a solid matchup? Or will the NHL send them to a place like Washington or Florida that doesn't really draw well, but would on a night with a team like the Red Wings (and their spread out fan base) coming to town?

It once again comes down to the old $$$ versus the best hockey action possible. And, of course, if you get the good "wildcard" matchups like Detroit-Ottawa that means at the other end of the spectrum you'll inevitably be stuck with a team like Edmonton or Phoenix going to Florida, where the crowds would probably draw more folks to see another divisional matchup against a familiar foe like Tampa Bay.

As you can see, it gets complicated and with 3 of these wildcard games and the already difficult logsitcal nightmare of scheduling games anyways, I'm guessing you'll probably see a pretty decent mix of some solid matchups plus some games that just look like revenue boosters for non-traditional hockey markets....I mean with this much complexity, plus the "parody" of teams playing at a SC Finals level one year and then not making the playoffs the next it's tough to tell. But some indicators, regardless of tough to forecast future outcomes will be obvious. If you see Detroit playing in Washington, Florida and Long Island next season, and Toronto in places like Nashville and Columbus then I think you'll know.

Should be interesting to keep an eye on. Somehow I think I know the answer to the $$$ v. good hockey matchup. (Hint: it's the NHL).


Obvious but perhaps necessary note: None of this is meant to take shots at markets like Miami, Nashville, Washington, Phoenix or anyone else. But traditional attendance figures and revenues "are what they are" as the saying goes.

On Deck: 9 Straight Division Opponents

Starting Saturday, the Penguins start a stretch of 9 games in 18 days. (That's an average of a game every other day for you non-math majors out there). All of these games are divisional games.

Let me repeat: ALL OF THESE GAMES ARE DIVISIONAL GAMES.

Coaches and players often stress the importance of facing their divisional rivals, since it's basically a 4 point swing in each contest. That means, 4 points a game for 9 straight games is 36 point swing in shaping the division.

The next 9 games of this season will basically shape the way it's going to be for the Penguins. If they struggle, they will lose a lot of ground in what figures to be one of the toughest and most competitive divisions in the NHL. If they play about .500 hockey like they've done all season then things will like be clustered.

But if they can turn in solid efforts every night, get some goals from a forward not named Crosby, Malkin or Sykora (which hasn't happened since Jordan Staal scored his only goal of the year on 10/20) and rattle off a big win streak then this could give a little breathing room and instill in the confidence needed to feed off of for the rest of the season.

The upcoming schedule looks like this:

Sat Nov 3, 2007
Penguins at Islanders
A trip to Long Island for a game against the scrappier than predicted Isles.

Mon Nov 5, 2007
Penguins at Devils
A first look at the Devils new home.

Wed Nov 7, 2007
Flyers at Penguins
This game will be slightly more intense than the average game.

Thu Nov 8, 2007
Penguins at Rangers
3rd game in 4 nights and a decent amount of travel too.

Sat Nov 10, 2007
Penguins at Flyers
The Flyers are tops in the division right now, but a lot of hockey to go.

Mon Nov 12, 2007
Devils at Penguins
The start of a 4 game homestand and a rare 2 day break after this game

Thu Nov 15, 2007
Islanders at Penguins
Yet another game against the Isles.

Sat Nov 17, 2007
Rangers at Penguins
Yep, it's these guys again

Wed Nov 21, 2007
Devils at Penguins
Seriously this is 4th time in 35 days the Pens and Devils will have played