In the past, some players have said playing for the Avalanche is tough because of the travel involved. They probably wouldn’t be wrong. There really aren’t that many NHL teams that are just a quick flight away from where Denver is located, although the Coyotes moving to Salt Lake City changes things for the better.
Next season, it appears the schedule makers at the NHL did the Avalanche a bit of a favor, because if you go by miles traveled, they’re in the bottom half of the league. If you compare them to the rest of the West, they’re in pretty good shape.
Travel distance by team for the upcoming NHL Season. #SeaKraken pic.twitter.com/CCrvZMMtpk
— NHLtoSeattle (@NHLtoSeattle) July 26, 2024
Considering every NHL team plays each other multiple times over the course of a season, it’s not likely to be terribly different from year-to-year. The differences are made up in the details. Here’s just a few examples.
Last year, the Avalanche had a strange road trip out East in early February. It started up north in New York and New Jersey, which is pretty standard, but it was the rest of the trip that was bizarre. The Avalanche played in Carolina, then flew down to Florida to play the Panthers, then had to go back north to play the Capitals, only to go back down to Florida and finish off in Tampa Bay. Typically the schedule makers try to bunch the Florida teams together for teams visiting, but that didn’t happen for the Avalanche last year. I know the organization wasn’t too happy about that. That won’t be the case this year, as they’ll knock out the Florida teams in two games in late November.
Last season, the Avalanche had eight one-off trips to cities where they would fly out, play the team, and then fly back to Denver. I’ll never understand those situations, but each team has to do it, so you can’t really complain about it. This season, they’ll have just five, including one to Utah, which will the team closest to them for the foreseeable future. One of them is also the season opener in Vegas, so they’ll be plenty rested heading into that one.
The Avalanche will also knock out all the Western Canada teams in the correct order. Last season, they snuck the Vancouver trip in between Edmonton and Calgary, which doesn’t make a ton of sense. That won’t happen this year.
When you look at the breakdown above, it’s not a surprise to see Eastern Conference teams at the bottom of the list, as they usually do have the best travel, but St. Louis is the only Western team that appears to be traveling less miles than the Avalanche. That’s not bad at all. We’ll see if it makes any difference next year.