x

Already member? Login first!

Comments / New

How far does your favorite team travel? Consult the NHL Super Schedule

The Los Angeles Kings and Buffalo Sabres are the big winners today with the NHL’s release of the 2012-2013 Regular Season schedule, when you examine the travel burden faced by all 30 teams.

Thanks to the fact that this season will not have opening games over in Europe, the Kings will travel more than 10,000 fewer miles than last season, when they led the league. The Sabres, who had to cope with a league-most 21 sets of games played on back-to-back nights in 2011-2012, now have the 2nd-fewest in the NHL, with only 11 on tap for the upcoming campaign.

This marks the 5th year I’ve taken the NHL’s regular season schedule and added in information that tells you how far each team travels along the way during the 82-game grind, how many times they have to play on back-to-back nights, and some strength-of-schedule information as well.

Follow along for all the scoop!

So here’s how this works: for each team, I walked through their schedule from Game 1 to Game 82, adding up the miles traveled from one game to the next (as the crow flies, using arena addresses). If a team has road games immediately before and after the All Star break, I add in a trip home between those games, and I’ve considered the Winter Classic in Ann Arbor as well.

One tweak I’ve made this year when you check out the full Google Spreadsheet is rather than show separate columns for Shots/Game and Shots Allowed/Game for the opponent in each game, I’ve gone with Team Fenwick percentage in 5-on-5 when the game is tied (from Behind The Net).

The table below, however, breaks down the travel situation by team, and throws in a comparison to last season (you can click the headers to re-sort the table based on that value). The columns show the total travel miles, the number of sets of back-to-back games, and the number of one-game road trips a team has to make:

Team 2012-13 Miles

2012-13

B to B

2012-13

1 Gm Trips

2011-12 Miles

2011-12

B to B

2011-12

1 Gm Trips

Anaheim Ducks 41,529 13 9 50,130 13 10
Boston Bruins 32,661 15 16 33,770 13 11
Buffalo Sabres 33,201 11 19 35,911 21 23
Carolina Hurricanes 37,371 14 24 38,114 16 24
Columbus Blue Jackets 41,171 16 15 42,831 16 17
Calgary Flames 46,503 14 7 49,104 10 5
Chicago Blackhawks 38,297 16 25 39,288 17 20
Colorado Avalanche 47,748 13 9 48,945 10 18
Dallas Stars 50,746 12 12 49,622 14 17
Detroit Red Wings 39,032 13 16 42,865 14 20
Edmonton Oilers 47,348 12 6 50,006 12 10
Florida Panthers 48,880 13 7 52,751 14 8
Los Angeles Kings 45,152 12 9 55,591 15 13
Minnesota Wild 43,469 15 11 42,860 11 12
Montreal Canadiens 35,659 15 28 39,174 13 19
New Jersey Devils 30,940 16 22 28,597 15 24
Nashville Predators 43,739 11 17 39,534 11 10
New York Islanders 30,072 16 23 32,410 13 20
New York Rangers 33,093 14 20 36,385 14 11
Ottawa Senators 30,614 13 17 33,915 17 20
Philadelphia Flyers 27,750 15 22 34,193 13 20
Phoenix Coyotes 40,858 14 11 49,192 13 15
Pittsburgh Penguins 32,182 14 19 33,439 15 17
San Jose Sharks 46,393 9 9 43,994 14 5
St. Louis Blues 41,169 15 7 38,781 17 20
Tampa Bay Lightning 45,641 13 7 43,717 10 12
Toronto Maple Leafs 32,617 14 15 32,239 17 21
Vancouver Canucks 46,706 11 6 46,826 11 2
Winnipeg Jets 47,876 11 8 44,627 14 8
Washington Capitals 37,730 12 28 37,969 13 22
Average 39,872 13.4 14.8 41,559 13.9 15.1

NOTE: Minor update made after initial publication – I added a trip home for Christmas for the few teams that had road games immediately before & after.

Feel free to copy this table, or check out the full Google Spreadsheet and download a copy as well. Enjoy!