One Day After...A Look at the Oilers Regular Season Schedule

Here's what I remember about last years calendar. We started the season on the road... almost every game. We finsihed the season at home... almost every game. Of course, by then it was too late to do anything about it.

Sure, an argument could be made that the tail end of the season would have mattered and been a great advantage if the Oilers had remained in the hunt; and that's true, but they weren't, so at this point -- it's a mute point.

Now, after a day to digest and examine the 2009/2010 regular season schedule for the Oilers, we can come to a few conclusions. This year's schedule is amazingly fair and even keel for a team known as having heavily weighted games both for and against each year.

The home vs away games are spread out nicely for this upcoming season with the exception of October and January, which is great for Edmonton. Being at home in October 9 times out of 14 games; and in fact, their first 4 games all at home vs teams I feel we can contend with in Dallas, Montreal and Calgary, is great news for fans. This gives Edmonton a strong advantage to focus on a great start.

In January, 8 of 12 games are at home, which too favors a traditionally poor out of the gate team after an All Star Game. Of course with no All Star break this year due to the Olympics, I believe a similar comparison can be derived from what it must feel like with the Olympic break starting in February. The Oilers can finish a strong run at home before the break, collect their thoughts and then 3 of the next 5 are at home again to start the season back into full swing.

The remaining months are very even with almost as many home games as away games.

In terms of back-to-back games, the Oilers are tied for the lowest amount of back-to-back games this year at 11. This versus the 16 they played a season ago. Compare that to Calgary and Vancouver who have 14, Minnesota with 15 and Colorado with 16, we are seated the best in our division for rest between games.

If you account for the miles we travel -- and a great blog was posted by Dirk Hoag from On The Forecheck http://www.ontheforecheck.com/2009/7/16/950950/how-much-does-your-favorite-team. Edmonton not only travels less than they did last year, but less than Calgary who we've always been told is a more attractive destination thanks to travel. Not so this year as they log more miles than anyone else in the league at 55,331. Edmonton is still well above average travelling 49,191 vs 40,782 that the mean of the league sees, but it's better than in years past and good news for youngsters playing their first season and not used the grind of an NHL travel schedule.

All in all, if the Oilers end up repeating as team who's worse at home than away, this schedule helps as the Oilers may tend to avoid the pile up of long losing streaks. So too, they'll have plenty of rest which can only be seen as a good thing.