The NHL officially released their schedules for the 2015-16 season and I decided to take a look at how this would affect the Montreal Canadiens 2015-16 NHL schedule.
The first oddity of the schedule was caught by Arpon Basu, Managing Editor of LNH.com:
#Habs and #Bruins face each other five times by January 19, and don’t play each other again the rest of the regular season.
— Аrpon Basu (@ArponBasu) June 25, 2015
The Canadiens will play the Boston Bruins on October 10, November 7, December 9, January 1 and January 19. On the other side of the spectrum, the Canadiens won’t get a chance to avenge their playoff elimination to the Tampa Bay Lightning until December 28, right before the end of 2015. They then play the Bolts February 9, March 31 and April 9.
If you like watching Montreal play their Canadian neighbours, you’ll be in luck early in the season. On October 24 the Habs play the Toronto Maple Leafs. Following that are games against the Vancouver Canucks (October 27), Edmonton Oilers (October 29), Calgary Flames (October 30), Winnipeg Jets (November 1) and finally the Ottawa Senators (November 3) to complete six Canadian teams in succession.
In 2014-15, the Canadiens played in 16 back-to-back series. They will do it again in 2015-16: October 10-11 against Bruins/Senators, October 23-24 against Sabres/Maple Leafs, October 29-30 against Oilers/Flames, November 19-20 against Coyotes/Islanders, November 27-28 against Devils, December 9-10 against Bruins/Red Wings, December 21-22 against Predators/Wild, December 28-29 against Lightning/Panthers, January 5-6 against Flyers/Devils, January 16-17 against Blues/Blackhawks, January 25-26 against Blue Jackets, February 2-3 with Flyers/Sabres, February 6-7 with Oilers/Hurricanes, March 2-3 against Ducks/Kings, March 15-16 against Panthers/Sabres, March 19-20 against Senators/Flames.
After kicking the season off on a four game road trip in October, the Canadiens kick off November at home and stay at home until a game on November 11 against the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Habs go right back to the Bell Centre for three more games, play the Islanders in Brooklyn on November 20 and go straight back to the Bell Centre to finish the home and home on November 22. That’s eight home games between November 1 and November 22. The opposite of this will be their year ending road trip beginning on December 19 against the Dallas Stars. Despite the Christmas break (December 23-25) and a break after the Winter Classic (January 1) in between, the Canadiens play eight straight road games ending against the Philadelphia Flyers on January 5.
The Montreal Canadiens go on what looks to be one of the weirdest schedule decisions I’ve seen in a long time. The Canadiens end January on a home and home against the Columbus Blue Jackets (January 25-26) before taking a six day break (All-Star Weekend in Nashville). Coming back they play the Philadelphia Flyers on the road and Buffalo Sabres at home in a back-to-back (February 02-03). What follows next? If you guessed, “Another back-to-back” you’d be correct. This ends up the strangest of the Canadiens 16 back-to-backs as they play the Edmonton Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes (February 06-07), each an afternoon game. Aside from the Winter Classic, this is the only afternoon games the Canadiens play and they will be in a back to back, after just playing two other back to backs with significant time in between. I’m going to call a wash on whatever happens in those games. It’ll be completely unpredictable.
The Canadiens will get a few breaks of three days or more. November 8-10 (3), December 6-8 (3), December 23-25 (4, Christmas Break), January 2-4 (3), January 10-13 (4), January 20-22 (3) and January 27-February 1 (6, All-Star Weekend in Nashville).
The season breakdown for game days is as follows:
Sunday Games: 6
Monday Games: 7
Tuesday Games: 18
Wednesday Games: 10
Thursday Games: 13
Friday Games; 7
Saturday Games: 21
The last Friday game will be played on February 19 versus the Flyers at the Bell Centre. Similarily, the last Monday game will be against the San Jose Sharks on the leap year day of February 29.
Final Thoughts of the Montreal Canadiens 2015-16 NHL schedule
There’s nothing really making me feel like it’s an unfair schedule. I do like that five out of the final six games are against division opponents (Tampa Bay, Detroit, Florida with Carolina thrown in) and I don’t really see any areas where one would think the Canadiens are going to be worked down into dust. The toughest month looks to be December with consecutive games on December 9 starting against Boston, Detroit, Ottawa, San Jose, Los Angeles, Dallas, Nashville, Minnesota, Washington and Tampa Bay before ending the month against the Panthers. Only the Bruins, Senators, Sharks and Kings games will be at home. The back-to-backs post All-Star Weekend are Philadelphia and Buffalo and Edmonton and Carolina. Then there’s a game against Tampa Bay before the Habs play Buffalo and Arizona. That’s going to be a good chance for the Habs to pick up some wins against weaker teams (excluding the Lightning). The rest of the schedule is a good mix of strong teams and rebuilding teams.
That said, the triple back-to-backs, the long breaks in January, finishing up the Boston Bruins by mid January and holding off on playing the Lightning until late December is a bit odd to me. It’s going to make for a weird schedule at times. It’s interesting how after lots of breaks, March turns into an absolute grind. Two back-to-backs and seven instances where games are just a day apart. That’s just going to add more pressure to Marc Bergevin to consider what depth he could add at the trade deadline to keep the roster fresh.
All this amplifies one important detail, which is that the season opener against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Wednesday, October 7 is only a little more than three months away. 104 days away. Getting excited?
