Impact of the New NHL Schedule
The 2008/2009 season will see the introduction of a new schedule that will see the Oilers play every team in the league at least once – instead of skipping over one eastern division a year.
For the upcoming season:
- 24 Games against Northwest division teams (three home/three away).
- 40 Games against non-divisional western conference rivals (two home/two away).
- 18 Games against the Eastern conference teams (one game each – with three wild card games)
At its simplest, we see eight games transferred from Northwest rivals to Eastern conference teams. While this is a welcomed change for this Oilers fan – nice to get to see more Eastern teams – it does add a new dynamic that could impact the Oilers overall results. Maybe even for the better.
Since the lock-out, the Oilers are 114-106-26 (46.3% win rate) – a big impact on this was the poor 2006/2007 campaign.
Against the West, the Oilers are 102-96-18 (47.2% win rate).
| West | W | L | OT | Win % |
| 2008 | 36 | 31 | 5 | 50.0% |
| 2007 | 28 | 40 | 4 | 38.9% |
| 2006 | 38 | 25 | 9 | 52.8% |
| Total | 102 | 96 | 18 | 47.2% |
| Average | 34 | 32 | 6 |
Against the East, the Oilers are 12-10-8 (40% win rate).
| East | W | L | OT | Win % |
| 2008 | 5 | 4 | 1 | 50.0% |
| 2007 | 4 | 3 | 3 | 40.0% |
| 2006 | 3 | 3 | 4 | 30.0% |
| Total | 12 | 10 | 8 | 40.0% |
| Average | 4.0 | 3.3 | 2.7 |
In the Northwest division, the Oilers were 39-51-6 (40.6% win rate).
| NW | W | L | OT | Win % |
| 2008 | 13 | 16 | 3 | 40.6% |
| 2007 | 11 | 20 | 1 | 34.4% |
| 2006 | 15 | 15 | 2 | 46.9% |
| Total | 39 | 51 | 6 | 40.6% |
| Average | 13 | 17 | 2 |
For the Central and Pacific, the Oilers were a combined 63-45-12 (52.5% win rate).
| Pac/Cen | W | L | OT | Win % |
| 2008 | 23 | 15 | 2 | 57.5% |
| 2007 | 17 | 20 | 3 | 42.5% |
| 2006 | 23 | 10 | 7 | 57.5% |
| Total | 63 | 45 | 12 | 52.5% |
| Average | 21 | 15 | 4 |
As can be seen, the Northwest hasn’t been a place of great success for the Oilers as they have been unable to play above .500 in any of the last three seasons (40.6% average win rate). This isn’t too surprising as the division has often been considered to be one of the strongest in the NHL.
The team will now be playing eight less games against their tough divisional rivals, which comes as a welcomed relief – both for increasing variety and moving away from an area of historical weakness.
As mentioned previously, these eight games are being transferred to the east, where we will be playing each eastern team once (Montreal, Ottawa and Toronto – twice). However, the east hasn’t exactly been a place of great strength for the Oil, as we have only won 40% of our games against them.
But they have been steadily improving since the end of the lock-out from 30% in 2006 to 50% last season. Also, there is a relatively small sample to draw from as we only played a total of 30 games out east out of 246 games, which makes it more difficult to get a true sense of our competitiveness against the east.
So the answer to the question of the impact on the new NHL schedule… it is likely a good thing we are not playing as much against the Northwest but we aren’t moving to the most fertile grounds in the east – too bad the games weren’t against the Pacific and Central divisions (52.5% win rate).
But at the end of the day, playing the Wild a few times less a season is a welcomed relief.
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