For many years, Caps fans have been emailing me complaining about our divisional schedule and that we play our division rivals too many times. Eight times a season to be exact.
Also, many NHL fans emailed the league asking to see stars like Alex Ovechkin on the road more frequently.
Hence, the league announced and implemented a new schedule where by we play division rivals only six times per season and our teams now travel and play away and on the road against all teams more often. We also get to see these teams at home more often as well. More balance is what everyone was asking for and more variety.
We all got what we asked for BUT at a price.
We played Anaheim on Wednesday and L.A. on Thursday. So we traveled three time zones on Monday night to get to California; adjust to new time zones; and played back to back games. We play again on Saturday night so three west coast games in four days.
Note: L.A. hadn’t played since Sunday so they were well rested. We are banged up and we played like we were tired. The fans out in LA didn’t see our best. But L.A. will come to Verizon Center soon enough and the tables will turn on the schedule.
We can’t complain. We asked for it and we got it.
Tags: Hockey, NHL, Ted Leonsis, Ted's Take, Washington Capitals
This is very true but we didn’t really have to jam three games into four days did we?
The Caps aren’t going to win every game and they won’t be at their best every night. We all have good and bad days, and last night was bad. Hopefully today will be an easy travel day followed by a *lot* of good rest. Ideally Feds or Green can get back in the line-up tonight, but if not, then you play with you who ya got.
Having Ovechkin, Backstrom, etc. etc. is a good thing.
Now, Saturday the Caps can make a statement. Even if they lose against San Jose, as long as they’re competitive, it says something. I think they’ll answer the bell and play hard. As long as they do their best, that’s all I can ask for as a fan…
ted—but here’s what we did see in southern california–there had to be around 200-300 fans in cap gear at the games plus other cap fans…maybe almost 500 or so total at each game.That is a shockingly high amount for the caps here in southern california. only the original six and a couple of other northeastern draw better in socal. As i have said before cap fans are now everywhere and actually proudly show up at away games.
in fact at the game last nite there was a faint “lets go caps” cheer and after the caps scored thieir first goal the Kings’ fans had to boo down the caps supporters’ cheers. i never thought i would see/hear that in los angeles.
Congrats ted to you and your staff–rock the red has spread across the country
That’s right, Ted.
And, what’s worse is the SanJose Sharks will have been waiting around all week to play us. Their last game was Monday in Nashville. That’s a 4 day layoff prior to us going into the Shark Tank for Saturday’s game.
We shouldn’t need to much motivation to want to hand the Sharks their first home regulation loss!
I’m actually in favor of playing each out of conference team twice a season; home and away. That’s the way it was back in the old days.
But, for anyone complaining about the rigors that come along with roadtrips, such as this one; I say that is the argument for “bagging” the idea of making the NHL a global league. Have pre-season and other exhibition games abroad, but keep the games that count in North America. Hockey is a staple north of our border, but there is still a lot of work to be done marketing the game in the U.S.
And, by the way, I’m also in favor of home teams wearing their white jerseys, and having the visitors bring in their colors. Makes for more colorful entertainment. “Rocking the Red” is great, but there is nothing wrong with a “white-out” either.
No complaining about West coast road trips for Eastern conference teams when the Detroit Red Wings have had to put up with these sorts of issues for years. Think of your little travails with one trip and now imagine how grueling the 2007 playoff series was for the Wings - 6 games series against Calgary and San Jose and 7 games against Anaheim. The Red Wings do enough favors for the whole rest of the league. They should be returned to the Eastern Conference ASAP. You should help them out with that next time it comes up in an owners meeting.
Big deal, just think of the schedule Dallas has. They have to travel to a different time zone for every division game.
The Caps had 4 days to rest up for the Anaheim game. Then they had to travel 20 minutes for their game the next day. Now they have 2 days to recover from an exhausting 1 hour plane ride.
We don’t need East coast owners complaining about travel.
Welcome to the West. Don’t expect LA to be to tuckered. They are used to those time zone trips.
No worries Ted. The LA game was a painful one to watch. Staying up till the wee hours in the evening in hopes that the Caps would get out of the slump was still worth it. I’m sure once we get Federov, Semin and Green back the next game will be put away in the win column. Our guys faired well without the likes of the big three in the line up.
Ted,
As someone who has lived in the Detroit suburbs his entire life, I’ve followed the Red Wings with passion. I’ve stayed up way too late a hundred times for west coast road trips. Over the last 15 years, Detroit has won four Stanley Cups, and made a fifth trip to the Cup final, losing to the Devils. They’ve played deep into the Western Conference playoffs another pair of those seasons.
Despite all of that success in these last 15 years, Detroit has consistently been one of the most traveled teams in the NHL (now Columbus shares in this with the Wings), with L.A., Anaheim, and San Jose understanding the difficulties, as well. And Vancouver… God pity them, they have it the worst!
I wouldn’t make a big deal of it, in the end. If you’re confident in your players, coaches, management, and trainers, and have full faith that they are all conditioning right and working hard to stay fit, then a game or two (or three) like this is no big deal.
I’m not sure if you’ve heard the term “league game” in sports. I believe it’s used more often in NBA circles than NHL circles, but the concept is still valid. The Caps got stuck in a “league game” against the Kings. The Wings had one earlier this season when they played five games in eight nights, including two back-to-backs, with the final games of the stretch being a back-to-back on the west coast against Anaheim and San Jose. They blew a lead and lost to the Ducks in OT, and then the next night lost to the Sharks 4-2. The Sharks were not on a back-to-back. Those are “league games” — the league has set you up for failure.
Even so, the bottom line is that these are the types of things that a team has to deal with if they really want to win a Cup. If you’re suggesting that you club will have trouble with this now, how will they feel if they make it to June and are in a Final against the Sharks or Ducks, and don’t have home ice (obviously I hope it’s the Wings, but for the sake of conversation…)?
If anything, the new schedule has made things more fair between the East and West, as far as travel is concerned. As far as I can tell, I think the Vancouver Canucks are probably the only team that really got the shaft out of this deal because on top of what was already the heaviest travel schedule in the league under the previous scheduling system, they now have to travel to the Eastern Time Zone for a handful of games that would’ve been division games within one time zone under the old schedule.
As a side note, though we might disagree on this issue, I wanted to say it’s great and refreshing to see an owner blogging, supporting the internet media and all it can (and has) done for the NHL. Also, it’s great to see you using your blog to communicate with fans. You seem to be pretty honest in your posts and that is appreciated, even when I disagree with you. More owners should show this kind of passion for their teams Ws and Ls (instead of gate receipts). And more owners should hurry up and realize that the blog and bloggers are tools to grow the game — not rogues that hinder it.
Do you really think the travel will bother the Kings when they visit D.C. later in the season? The Kings travel more than any other team in the entire league every year. Give the excuses a rest, Ted. Your boys got outplayed by the better team last night. Scoreboard, congratulate the Kings and move on!
This proves how asinine the conference alignments are. The Eastern Conference has it so easy with travel, having just a single time zone to deal with, while all four time zones are represented in the “Western” Conference. How can Detroit and Columbus, and even Nashville or Chicago for that matter be “Western” teams?
And yet they don’t complain about these west coast trips that they have to do at least four times a year…with the back-to-back nights…
Please, no more complaining about travel unless you switch conferences.