Year One With 84

A few weeks ago, when discussing Houston's prospects of landing an NHL expansion team (a hot-button topic around the league for several months), Gary Bettman was asked about how the league would navigate having an odd number of teams.  He correctly pointed out the fact that the NHL had 31 teams for a few seasons between when Vegas (how was that 10 years ago, BTW?!) and Seattle joined the league.  However, what he said next is where he lost me.  He argued that, because 31 teams worked, the NHL could easily do 33 because the number of teams in the league "doesn't matter" when it comes to figuring out the schedule.

The reason this take confused me is because it absolutely did matter to NHL teams that they were playing an unbalanced schedule.  When the Kraken entered the league, the NHL kept an 82-game schedule.  However, since everybody played a home-and-home with Seattle, they had to take away two division games.  Which meant teams weren't playing the same number of games against divisional foes.  They played four games against five opponents, but only three against the other two.  Teams didn't like that imbalance.

That's the primary reason why the NHL went to an 84-game schedule this season.  Those two division games have been restored.  Now, they're back to playing four games against each of the other seven teams in their division.  Which is what teams wanted.  This will be the NHL's first 84-game season since 1993-94, and the first where it's completely balanced since I don't even know when (I'm not counting 2020-21 when they played only against their realigned divisions because of COVID).

Anyway, the entire point of moving to an 84-game schedule was to give those two division games back.  The ridiculous playoff system that only Bettman likes is all about having those division rivalries highlighted in the first two rounds.  Yet, for the last five years, teams were playing only one regular season home game against one of those division opponents (the same as every team in the other conference and fewer than against four teams in the other division in their own conference).  It didn't make any sense, and now it's been fixed.

So why is Bettman now talking about immediately unbalancing the schedule when the first season of an 84-game slate hasn't even started yet?!  And, make no mistake, it's gonna be unbalanced again at some point fairly soon.  Because all signs are pointing towards the NHL adding a second team in Texas.  Bettman all but confirmed it.  There was even an article on NHL.com.  You don't post something like that on the official league website if it's not already in the works.  It's really just a question of whether it'll be Houston or Austin.  Although, even that isn't really a question.  It'll be Houston.

Regardless of whether it's Houston or Austin, that'll immediately throw the NHL schedule out of whack once again.  Right after they just fixed it!  The Central Division would suddenly have nine teams in it, and the Eastern Conference teams would suddenly go from 32 games against the West to 34.  So, guess what happens to those two division games that were brought back when they expanded the schedule to 84?  We're right back to having an uneven number of division games!

And once they add Houston, you know the NHL won't stop there.  Whether it's Atlanta (which it shouldn't be, since they'll just move to Canada within 10 years anyway) or back to Phoenix or Quebec, it'll be an awkward number until they get to 36...which obviously won't be immediate.  But, Houston being the 33rd team does seem inevitable.  Especially after what Bettman said about already negotiating with a potential ownership group.  So, we'd better enjoy the nice, evenly-balanced 32-team, 84-game schedule while we can.

Because, even when/if they do get to 36 teams, the schedule won't be anywhere close to balanced.  The math simply doesn't work!  And that even accounts for going from four eight-team divisions to six six-team divisions.  So, in one way, what Bettman said is true.  They'll figure out a schedule for however many number of teams are in the league.  But it won't be balanced.  Which was the entire point of going to 84 games!

With the addition of the two regular season games, there are a few other changes to the NHL schedule this season.  They squeezed the extra two games into the existing calendar, but also moved up the start of the season.  Opening night is September 29, when the Hurricanes will raise their Stanley Cup banner against the Panthers (no word on how many of the owner's children, who were all vital to the team's success last season, will be there).  The season had always started the first week in October.  The last week of the season has also been bumped up, with the last games being played on April 10.  I actually love that change since it means the playoffs will start earlier, which means the Stanley Cup Final will be done by early June at the latest.

As a part of the agreement to increase the regular season slate to 84 games, they reduced the preseason from six games to four.  What's interesting about that, though, is how everybody's preseason schedule is entirely local.  That's always been the case.  But this year, it's even more so.  The Rangers, Islanders and Devils are only playing each other.  The Maple Leafs, Canadiens and Senators have an MLB Spring Training split-squad thing going on.  The Ducks only play the other California teams.  Seattle only plays Vancouver and Calgary, etc.

One thing that has always bothered me about the NHL schedule will continue, though.  Teams don't start or end on the same days!  The Rangers have three games in the season's first four days.  The Islanders don't play their second game until the fifth day of the season.  Likewise, on the back end, some teams will be done while others still have multiple games left.  That obviously creates a potential rest advantage/disadvantage heading into the playoffs.  And that really shouldn't happen.  Especially since it's an easy enough thing to avoid.

I get that the primary reason for this is TV.  The NHL wants to make sure it fulfills its contractual obligations with ESPN/ABC, TNT and the Canadian broadcast partners.  But, still, there has to be a way to accommodate TV while also having a uniform start/end date for all teams.  If you want to have Opening Night be a separate thing, that's fine.  But then have everybody else play the following day!  Not the first or second or third or fourth day of the season.

At the end of the season, though, is the real problem.  There are 32 teams.  They could easily have 16 games on Wednesday and just give TNT a Monday or Tuesday doubleheader to make up for not playing on Thursday.  That way, you can have Game 1 of all eight first-round playoff series on the weekend without having to worry about a rest disparity (or having to wait until Monday because one team played on Thursday, which throws off the schedule for the entire series!).

But, hey, those are minor things to nitpick about.  The point is we're getting more NHL hockey than ever before this season.  The 1,344 regular season games are the most in league history.  And the season starts a week earlier!  Both of those are good things.  So is the fact that the schedule is finally balanced.