Looking at the Devils 2009-10 schedule

July 15, 2009   ·   Hasan   ·   Jump to comments

As a season ticket holder, I admit a certain bias in looking towards (and making a list of) the home games exclusively, to see which ones I can attend and which ones I’d prefer to sell off due to a few factors – time, amount of games in a particular week, etc.  Generally I wind up going to about 2/3rds of games, or at least I have the last couple years.  As usual there were some good things and not-so-good things in looking at the Devils schedule.

In the not-so-good category, the Devils play Dallas and Chicago twice again, after we had a home and home with both teams (as well as the Kings) last year.  I thought the new schedule was supposed to be balanced, with the NHL giving each team three home and three away games with a team in the other conference in five years?! 

Granted, there are worse teams to be stuck with playing twice than Dallas and Chicago, we played two great games with the Hawks last year including Martin Brodeur‘s record-setting 552nd win on St. Patty’s Day at the Rock.  Though Dallas isn’t what they were a few years ago, it’s still a decent rivalry but still, I don’t get unbalancing the schedule.  Is the NHL that desperate to have its marquee teams and Canadien teams play each other that they automatically get a home-and-home every year now?  I haven’t looked at other schedules to find that out, maybe Derek’ll answer later.

And it’s just too bad that Calgary wasn’t one of our home-and-homes, we only play them once – in early March after the Olympic break.  I do like Nashville being the other one though, with the reborn Steve Sullivan and Jason Arnott still wearing the Preds uniform (for now) they still have an ex-Devil presence.

One of my schedule pet peeves occurs in late January – early Feburary when we play the Leafs no fewer than three times in an eight-day stretch.  When you only play four games a year with a conference team, it’s tough to scrunch up three of them in barely a week.  I understand making a schedule for 30 teams with 30 arenas (well more including the outdoor game and overseas tilts) is difficult but still.

In the plus category, the Devils start the season at home October 3 - on a Saturday night against the Flyers.  Doesn’t get any better than that really (one can say a Ranger game but given the Ranger fan presence at the Rock, Flyer games are the juciest ones to go to with a true home atmopshere).  In a normal year the second home game is a guaranteed attendance flop but that won’t be the case this year considering they do play the aformentioned Rangers at the Rock two nights later.

In an oddity, the Devils’ schedule looks to be fairly balanced in terms of home and road games, with the longest road trip a mere five games from January 9 to January 18 when the Devils are at Montreal, the Rangers, Phoenix, Colorado and finally concluding with a matchup against the Islanders on Martin Luther King Day at 2 PM.  Also, the team’s longest homestand is five games, though they do play nine of ten at home with the lone road game in Buffalo from November 28 – December 18.

Good news for the football fans out there, the Devils don’t have a single Sunday game until January 31 – the first of only four Sunday games the entire season.  Maybe someone (re: Lou Lamoriello) got in the league’s ear after an embarassing sub-15,000 showing for a Devils-Flyers game on a football Sunday in late December. 

While the Devils play an almost unheard of twenty-four Saturday games, only eight of them are at home.  On the flip side, the Devils play twelve of their fourteen Friday games at home.  Overall, the Devils have nine Monday and eight Tuesday games (VERSUS territory), thirteen on Wednesday and ten on Thursday.

Speaking of holiday games, in addition to playing on MLK day, the Devils also have another New Year’s Eve road game, this time in Chicago for an 8:30 ET start.  Also the Devils play the night before and afternoon after Thanksgiving, with a home date against Ottawa on 11/25 and a noon game in Boston on 11/27.

In terms of highlight games, the Devils don’t have to wait long for a playoff rematch, playing the Hurricanes once again at the Rock on Saturday 10/17 at 7 PM.  The following Saturday the Devils go to Pittsburgh for their first meeting with the Stanley Cup champs.  Oddly, the Devils play all three road games with Pittsburgh before their first matchup at the Rock on December 30.  Just after Thanksgiving there are two highlight matchups at the Rock (sandwiched around a Friday game with the Lightning), with Roberto Luongo and the Canucks coming in on 12/2, while the Red Wings make their first-ever trip to the Devils’ new arena on Saturday 12/5 - not to mention former All-Star Brian Rafalski‘s return to Jersey.

Among other ex-Devils returning, Scott Niedermayer comes in for almost certainly the last time when the Ducks play at the Rock on 11/11.  Montreal’s first trip in with duo Scott Gomez and Brian Gionta is on 12/16.  Nashville (Arnott and Sullivan) come in on  February 12.  St. Louis with Cam Janssen comes in March 20 and John Madden makes his return with the Blackhawks on April 2.  New Jersey ends the regular season with a pair of home games on April 10-11 against the Islanders and Sabres.