As NHL play resumes tonight after the lengthy Olympic break, all eyes are focused on the road to the playoffs, since so many teams are bunched tightly together in both the Eastern and Western conferences.
But which teams have a more difficult road than others? Below, I leveraged the NHL Super Schedule to figure that out...
The table below includes many of the main factors which describe the difficulty of a team's schedule. A good part of the variance that you'll see in the Average Opponent Winning % is the fact that the Western Conference is much stronger than the East, but if you make some side-by-side comparisons of teams battling for playoff position, the differences jump out:
| Team | Games | Home | Road | Avg Opp Win % | Avg Opp 5 on 5 GF/GA | Back-To-Back Sets | Total Mileage |
| Anaheim Ducks | 20 | 12 | 8 | .516 | 1.03 | 4 | 10,592 |
| Atlanta Thrashers | 22 | 14 | 8 | .488 | 1.02 | 5 | 7,216 |
| Boston Bruins | 22 | 9 | 13 | .480 | 1.02 | 4 | 7,912 |
| Buffalo Sabres | 22 | 9 | 13 | .474 | 0.97 | 6 | 6,049 |
| Calgary Flames | 20 | 9 | 11 | .549 | 1.10 | 2 | 16,104 |
| Carolina Hurricanes | 21 | 10 | 11 | .510 | 1.05 | 4 | 8,864 |
| Chicago Blackhawks | 21 | 10 | 11 | .506 | 1.01 | 5 | 13,072 |
| Colorado Avalanche | 21 | 11 | 10 | .529 | 1.07 | 5 | 11,028 |
| Columbus Blue Jackets | 19 | 10 | 9 | .518 | 1.05 | 3 | 7,839 |
| Dallas Stars | 21 | 12 | 9 | .557 | 1.09 | 2 | 9,712 |
| Detroit Red Wings | 21 | 12 | 9 | .506 | 1.02 | 3 | 9,289 |
| Edmonton Oilers | 21 | 9 | 12 | .517 | 1.01 | 4 | 14,420 |
| Florida Panthers | 21 | 11 | 10 | .508 | 1.02 | 4 | 12,957 |
| Los Angeles Kings | 21 | 11 | 10 | .512 | 1.01 | 3 | 15,530 |
| Minnesota Wild | 21 | 10 | 11 | .490 | 1.02 | 4 | 10,566 |
| Montreal Canadiens | 19 | 9 | 10 | .465 | 0.96 | 3 | 9,656 |
| Nashville Predators | 21 | 12 | 9 | .499 | 1.00 | 4 | 11,590 |
| New Jersey Devils | 21 | 11 | 10 | .467 | 0.97 | 5 | 10,143 |
| New York Islanders | 20 | 11 | 9 | .514 | 1.02 | 4 | 9,453 |
| New York Rangers | 20 | 8 | 12 | .489 | 1.00 | 4 | 6,381 |
| Ottawa Senators | 19 | 7 | 12 | .449 | 0.99 | 2 | 13,689 |
| Philadelphia Flyers | 22 | 10 | 12 | .469 | 0.97 | 5 | 8,025 |
| Phoenix Coyotes | 19 | 8 | 11 | .520 | 1.06 | 4 | 11,888 |
| Pittsburgh Penguins | 20 | 10 | 10 | .476 | 1.00 | 5 | 6,142 |
| San Jose Sharks | 20 | 10 | 10 | .504 | 1.03 | 3 | 13,805 |
| St. Louis Blues | 20 | 8 | 12 | .511 | 0.99 | 4 | 10,008 |
| Tampa Bay Lightning | 21 | 11 | 10 | .496 | 1.05 | 4 | 8,900 |
| Toronto Maple Leafs | 21 | 12 | 9 | .472 | 0.94 | 4 | 5,614 |
| Vancouver Canucks | 21 | 10 | 11 | .529 | 1.04 | 5 | 13,664 |
| Washington Capitals | 20 | 12 | 8 | .468 | 0.95 | 3 | 6,643 |
Take, for example, the teams in the #8-10 spots in the West (Calgary, Dallas and Detroit). Other than having to play one more back-to-back set, the Red Wings have a significantly easier remaining schedule.