For those who don't know, November will be the month in which teams play the most games against teams within their own division.
In fact there are a total of 136 inter-divisional games to be played in the month of November (about 9/team) and 63 games against other opponents. This works out to 68% of all games played in November are inter-divisional games. To put this number into perspective, there will be 146 inter-divisional games played in December, January and February combined (about 50 per month).
By the end of November we should have a good idea where teams stand within their own divisions, but it will still be difficult to tell how these divisions will fit into the overall standings.
Why the NHL choose to do things this way is beyond me. I would expect the NHL to want to evenly distribute these games throughout the year. Last season the NHL was much more balanced in regards to these games, but it appears the NHL wanted to load all the inter-divisional games into two months.
March is also a big inter-divisional month, with 108 games. So in November and March account for over 50% of the inter-divisional games, but only 1/3 of the season.
1 comment:
I'd say that's because this is the period of the season when attendance is generally lower, so they put the most repetitive and grinding part of the schedule there.
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