They've got a long ways to go, and a short time to get there...

Mirtle made an interesting point the other day about this week's Predators/Red Wings home-and-home series involving a long way to travel (~530 miles) for games on consecutive nights. So I thought to myself, which of the back-to-back matchups have had the most distance between them this year? Estimated distances are from Google Maps directions, which is based on driving distance, but this is good enough for blog work...

On December 29th & 30th, the Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues (not even division rivals!), travelled 850 miles and lost an hour along the way, since the first game was in Denver (Mountain time) and the second in St. Louis (Central).

On February 27th & 28th, we had another non-divisional pairing between Ottawa and Carolina, separated by about 830 miles.

On October 16th & 17th, the Edmonton Oilers played at Vancouver then played the Canucks the next night back home (~700 miles).

On December 22nd & 23rd, the Red Wings first hosted the Minnesota Wild, then headed ~690 miles up to Minneapolis for Round 2.

On December 26th & 27th, the Calgary Flames hosted the Canucks, then headed about 600 miles to Vancouver for the rematch.

Those are some horrendous road trips - one would hope the NHL schedule makers try to minimize these events as much as possible, especially considering how some teams (i.e. Northwest division) already travel much more than others (Atlantic).