New consipracy. Back-to-back games.

[TotallyWired 0]

Here's another conspiracy theory proving the league (Bettman) wants the wings to fail/lose.

Wings seem to have more back-to-back games than most of the other teams.

Wings 16

Sharks 13

Penguins 11

Oh, the injustice.

disclaimer.... figures may be off as they were counted under heavy medication, and yes I have nothing better to do with my life.

[spyder 0]

And of course the wings have a back to back game when they play buttman's penguins.

[FLWINGSFAN4013 5]

it is what it is....another conspiracy would be that the red wings brain wash their players into taking less money...

Edited February 10, 2009 by FLWINGSFAN4013

[vangvace 12]

I seem to remember this from preseason...

[Echolalia 2,961]

One team has to have the most back-to-back games. Why not make it the Stanley Cup champions and two other upper-tier teams? At least they can handle it. I think it would be ridiculous to give it to Tampa Bay and the Islanders.

Besides, making an 82 game schedule work for 30 teams whos arenas often have other agendas of their own to work isn't an easy task. Especially with every team complaining about how much they have to travel now-a-days.

Edited February 10, 2009 by Echolalia

[thedisappearer 291]

I felt this way last season, when we had a ton of back to backs, and every single one required travel... just like our four this month.

[vangvace 12]

One team has to have the most back-to-back games. Why not make it the Stanley Cup champions and two other upper-tier teams? At least they can handle it. I think it would be ridiculous to give it to Tampa Bay and the Islanders.

Besides, making an 82 game schedule work for 30 teams whos arenas often have other agendas of their own to work isn't an easy task. Especially with every team complaining about how much they have to travel now-a-days.

iirc each owner supplies a list of dates that are bad for them to host a game. The league then puts those into a computer and it kicks out the schedule.

[Drake_Marcus 890]

iirc each owner supplies a list of dates that are bad for them to host a game. The league then puts those into a computer and it kicks out the schedule.

Indeed. This type of computer optimization system is very similar to the type used by university registrar offices to schedule courses and exams.

However, there will always be a multitude of possible solutions for this type of multivariable optimization problem (it is highly, highly unlikely that you'd find only one solution to a problem with this many variables). In other words- today's schedule is one of many possible solutions. Who knows why this one was chosen.

[Echolalia 2,961]

iirc each owner supplies a list of dates that are bad for them to host a game. The league then puts those into a computer and it kicks out the schedule.

The point I was trying to make was there are a finite amount of ways the schedule could have been made, and teams are going to be screwed over in some regard one way or another.

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

In the 8 pairs of games of games on consecutive dates the DRW has played so far this season, their record stands at:

4 Sweeps - 0 Swepts - 4 Splits.

Last season, in 15 pairs, their record was:

7 Sweeps - 3 Swepts - 5 splits.

They have shown they can handle the challenge.

[SouthernWingsFan 854]

This is nonsense. Every team has back-to-back games in this league. It isn't just the Red Wings problem and nobody is out to intentionally get them or intentionally want them to fail.

[thedisappearer 291]

This is nonsense. Every team has back-to-back games in this league. It isn't just the Red Wings problem and nobody is out to intentionally get them or intentionally want them to fail.

Yeah, I know. I don't think there is an active conspiracy to keep us down. But I see these trends, like all the B2Bs that require travel, and that it seems like we play a lot more of our weekend games on the road- though I think that would be due to revenue, not bias- and I start to get the feeling it's not always a level playing field for all 30 teams.

[55fan 5,133]

If all teams begin the season on almost the same day (except those who played in Europe) and all teams end the season on almost the same day, and all teams play 82 games, wouldn't it stand to reason that having more back to back games also means what we have more stretches between games? Granted it's only a day here and a day there, but it would add up that way, right?

Or am I missing something?

[Guest CaliWingsNut]

Detroit's got their schedule easy... Try being the Kings, using the staples center along w/ the NBA's Lakers and Clippers, the WNBA's Sparks, and the AFL's Avengers.

Edited February 11, 2009 by CaliWingsNut

[pjgj13 30]

Detroit's got their schedule easy... Try being the Kings, using the staples center along w/ the NBA's Lakers and Clippers, the WNBA's Sparks, and the AFL's Avengers.

Actually the AFL ceased operations for this coing season (and beyond??) and the WNBA plays their games in the summer (am I correct??).

Besides the AFL seasons started in late March, so they had to schedule around the Kings. Doesn't the NHL schedule come out before the NBA schedule? If so, then the Kings have no problems then.....LOL

[SDavis35 140]

In the 8 pairs of games of games on consecutive dates the DRW has played so far this season, their record stands at:

4 Sweeps - 0 Swepts - 4 Splits.

Last season, in 15 pairs, their record was:

7 Sweeps - 3 Swepts - 5 splits.

They have shown they can handle the challenge.

This is the stat I was looking for, we did fine last season. So we can keep going this season!

Also noted last night: we need to go 18-10-0 to match last season's final point tally. Not out of reach.

[cusimano_brothers 1,655]

Is a conspiracy afoot? Not likely, although some fine tuning of planning with regards to travel distance may be in order.

I took the schedules of three clubs: San Jose, Boston and Detroit. The first two Clubs because one is on each side of the USA. The totals for Games on Consecutive Days (GCD) for each club are:

San Jose: 14

Boston: 16

Detroit: 16.

Each pair of GCD can be broken into 4 categories by location: Home/Home (H/H), Home/Road (H/R), Road/Home (R/H), Road/Road (R/R). The totals for each club are:

San Jose Boston Detroit

H/H: 1 1 0

H/R: 4 6 8

R/H: 1 2 0

R/R: 8 7 8

The furthest San Jose travels for the second game of an H/R or an R/H GCD is Phoenix. On one R/R, they travel from Detroit to Ottawa; on another R/R, they travel from Chicago to Nashville.

Boston has one R/H that travels from Chicago to Boston, one R/H that travels from Atlanta to Boston and one H/R that travels from Boston to St. Louis.

Detroit has one H/R that travels from Detroit to Boston, two H/R that travel from Detroit to Nashville and one R/R that travels from Nashville to Colorado.

(Don’t get me started about “the only reason Nashville is in the Western/Central is because there was no place else to stick them”; this will all be taken care of when they move the franchise). When Minnesota and Columbus were set to come into the League in 2000-01, the League had plans for Minnesota to be in the Western Conference and Columbus in the Eastern Conference. With the next realignment, Minnesota was to be in the Central Division. Enter Pat Quinn, who begged the League to let the Maple Leafs go to the Eastern Conference because it was too tough for them in the Western Conference. This saw both Minnesota and Columbus in the Western Conference. But, I digress.)

It’s not a case that they play a lot more GCD than other clubs; and the 16 total GCD (32 games) they play this season only accounts for 39% of their season, so there’s not really a hardship there. In contrast, in the 1954-55 season (when the League played 70 game schedules with 6 clubs and a “western trip” stopped at Chicago) they played 25 GCD (still the most in a season), and those 50 games accounted for 71.4% of their season. The problem lies with the travel involved from one city to another in order to finish the GCD, when it is H/R or R/H. The League wanted to use GCD to maintain “rivalries” in the each of the divisions in the League, like in the old “Black and Blue” days of the Norris Division. But here’s a list of the DRW Central Division opponents and the last time they played (or will play) GCD:

Chicago: March, 2006; will play again in April 2009

Columbus: April, 2006

Nashville: March, 2007

St. Louis: October, 2005.

So, the League seems to be getting away from this as well.

As for a breakdown of GCD in this decade:

2000-01: 19

2001-02: 16

2002-03: 15

2003-04: 15

2005-06: 16

2006-07: 15

2007-08: 15.

It looks like the League has settled down as far as the number goes, after the decade high the first season.

For H/H GCD, a breakdown for the decade is:

2000:01: 0

2001-02: 1

2002-03: 1

2003-04: 1

2005-06: 1 (last time a H/H GCD was played).

As a footnote, the DRW has played three GCD five times in their history, the last being February, 1976.

But when it’s all said and done, their schedule this season will have covered 186 calendar dates, 82 games and, believe it or not, the DRW will have had 104 off days.

[SouthernWingsFan 854]

Nobody here seems to be complaining that Minnesota was in a back-to-back scenario recently and the 2nd game they played was Detroit, which the Wings won.

Columbus had back-to-back games this weekend and won both of them.

There's no conspiracy. There's no "Everybody is out to see the Red Wings suffer syndrome". It is something all teams deal with.

[adamic 0]

It's just plain stupid the way games are scheduled for all the teams. Why the hell are the red wings in the western conference. They seem to be as far east as you can go in the states. This causes all kinds of problems.

[puckloo39 5,686]

Nobody here seems to be complaining that Minnesota was in a back-to-back scenario recently and the 2nd game they played was Detroit, which the Wings won.

Columbus had back-to-back games this weekend and won both of them.

There's no conspiracy. There's no "Everybody is out to see the Red Wings suffer syndrome". It is something all teams deal with.

^^ this, amongst others which say there is no plan to see the Red Wings fail.

The Wings seem to play badly for no reason at all, on the rare occasion they do actually play badly. No excuses needed. They are big boys and professionals. Back to backs should not a problem for them.

[Winged_Wheeler 3]

I think the master plan is to be behind the Sharks for the sake of who they're going to be playing in this years playoffs.

[dicksmack 33]

The wings do well on back2backs, so who cares?

[BuckeyeWingsfan80 209]

Nobody here seems to be complaining that Minnesota was in a back-to-back scenario recently and the 2nd game they played was Detroit, which the Wings won.

Columbus had back-to-back games this weekend and won both of them.

There's no conspiracy. There's no "Everybody is out to see the Red Wings suffer syndrome". It is something all teams deal with.

I think I saw a post earlier on this season that had Columbus with the most back to back games (I think the number was 20 or something like that).....

Now I know having 16 sucks, but hell at least we KNOW the Wings are going to make the playoffs. The BlowJackets might finally have a team worthy of the 8 seed but may run out of gas (they have some young players playing key roles) due to the schedule. That would REALLY suck IMO.

[joshy207 156]

It's just plain stupid the way games are scheduled for all the teams. Why the hell are the red wings in the western conference. They seem to be as far east as you can go in the states. This causes all kinds of problems.

You should look at a map then. There are 16 teams farther east than Detroit. One of them is Columbus (barely), who is also in the Western Conference.

[GROwl 5]

So what? These guys are professional athletes! Bring up more Griffins if there are issues that two nights in a row is too much of a physical/mental challenge.

The Griffins regularly play 3-in-3's and 4-in-5's. With long bus rides to the next destination in between. Back-to-games are the norm rather than the exception in the AHL. Ask any Griffin...they would trade places in a second.