Chirps from Center Ice

I was traveling when the schedule was announced Thursday at 2, so after taking a look at it after I set up camp deep in South Central Pennsylvania, here’s some thoughts:

First, as we always do, the Penguins release is here and the League release is here.

1) Do you have a schedule matrix of opponents? Anyone in the Conference we are not playing?

Nope. We play all eight (yes, eight, more on that in a minute) teams in the North once at home and once on the road but for Cleveland who we play twice at home and twice on the road. Rockford, Milwaukee and Chicago are also on the schedule, once at home and on the road.

2) Longest road trip? Longest home stand?

Longest road trip is in March, when they start in Providence on March 13, travel to Hartford the next day, then Toronto, Hamilton, Rochester followed by a road game against Lehigh Valley. There are three separate four game home stands.

3) How many three in threes?

Three, if I counted right, up from two last year.

4) How many work night and Sunday home games?

Eight, yes, eight Sunday home games, up from four the year prior. They must see something in these that I don’t, cause I don’t like ’em. On top of that, as if to make it more agonizing, they start at various times of 3, 5 and 6 p.m.

No Monday games, two home Tuesday games, one road, six Wednesday home games, eight on the road and no Thursdays.

5) Any off the wall schedule time quirks?

There’s a Tuesday road game on December 8 in Charlotte that starts at 10:30 a.m. The Wednesday, March 17 game in Toronto against the Marlies starts at 1:30 p.m. and will be played at Scotiabank Arena, the home of the Toronto Maple Leafs.

Oh, and the midweek games start at 6:35, a half hour earlier for some reason.

6) Where’s the All-Star Classic this year?

Cleveland, Ohio.

7) Playoff structure?

Will likely be different this season with only seven teams in the division. That means you take the three highest seeds in the division and give them byes to the second round. The four seed plays the five seed in a best-of three with the winner getting the one seed. Two and three play each other from there.

8) What about preseason games?

No word on that yet.

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Twelve games (6 home / 6 road) with Hershey and Lehigh Valley, eight with Charlotte, six with Hartford and Springfield and only four again with Providence, who apparently are fine with continuing to fill up their schedule with Hartford (12 times) and Springfield (14 times) but I gotta hand it to them, they also have Rockford, Milwaukee and Chicago on their schedule. That’s the first time in a while I have seen the Bruins venture out into the Western Conference.

Anyway, now back to summer!