At last! All is quiet on the J.T. Miller front.
The biggest news of the last couple of days has been the arrival of new AHL goalie coach Marko Torenius, the ice going in at Rogers Arena, and Andrei Kuzmenko dialling up the energy during a 'Skate Of Your Dreams' event with some kids.
We've got just over a week remaining before the YoungStars tournament in Penticton, and about two weeks till medicals and the opening media day ahead of training camp in Whistler.
While things are relatively quiet, let's get back to analyzing the rest of the 2022-23 schedule.
If you missed it,
Click here for the breakdown of the first three months of the season, through the end of December.
Now — on to 2023:
JANUARY: 7 home games, 6 road games
There's one big, hard-to-pack-for road trip scheduled in January. Other than that, the Canucks will spend most of the month at home, where they'll see plenty of last year's Stanley Cup Finalists.
The new year opens with a pair of home games, against the New York Islanders and the Colorado Avalanche. Then, they'll head out for an intense five-in-eight road trip that starts in Winnipeg before moving on to Pittsburgh, then finishing with three games in four days in Tampa, Florida and Carolina. The last two games are the back-to-back, with only 22 hours between the 7 p.m. Eastern start in Sunrise on Saturday, Jan. 14 and the 5 p.m. Eastern puck drop on Sunday in Raleigh.
After running that gauntlet, the Canucks will get two days to get home and regroup before a rare three-in-four on home ice — and it's a tough one. The Lightning make their lone visit of the year on January 18, followed by the return of the Avalanche on the 20th and the Oilers stopping by for the Hockey Day in Canada late game on the 21st.
Then, the club will get two days off before wrapping up the January schedule with one last three-in-four, with travel. Chicago visits on Wednesday the 24th, then the Canucks make a quick trip to face Seattle on the 25th and return home to host Johnny Gaudreau and the Columbus Blue Jackets on the 27th.
Following those games, there's a moment to breathe: Vancouver's bye week bumps up against the All-Star Break. The club will be off for nine days, from Jan. 28 - Feb. 5.
FEBRUARY: 4 home games, 7 road games
Players who are selected for All-Star participation will make their way back to Florida for All-Star Weekend in Sunrise on Feb 2-5. Then, they'll stay out east to re-join their teammates on a four-game jaunt. That includes the three-game New York set — New Jersey, the Rangers and the Islanders — then finishes off with a Saturday matinee in Detroit.
That'll be the last regular-season visit of the year to the Eastern Time Zone. And remarkably, Vancouver's two games against the Red Wings this year will be a home-and-home set. The clubs will face each other again at Rogers Arena two days later as the Canucks open a three-game homestand which also includes visits from the New York Rangers on Wednesday, Feb. 15, then the Philadelphia Flyers on Saturday the 18th.
Then, February wraps up somewhat strangely, with what's essentially a four-game road trip. Vancouver will play in Nashville on the 21st and St. Louis on the 23rd, then come all the way home to face Boston on Saturday the 25th before returning to the Central for a game in Dallas on Monday the 27th. That's different!
I haven't been able to find an official announcement of the date for the 2023 trade deadline, but that should also fall around the end of February.
MARCH: 9 home games, 6 road games
As always, March is busy. But the good news is that the travel is relatively limited.
A six-game homestand covers the first half of the month, with at least one day off between each game. The visitors will be Minnesota, Toronto (Saturday, March 4, at 4 p.m. PT, of course), Nashville, Anaheim, Ottawa and Dallas.
Then, there's a quick three-in-four trip. It starts in Arizona, with the Canucks' first visit to the new 5,000-seat Mullett Arena at Arizona State University. That's followed up by a weekend back-to-back against Los Angeles and Anaheim.
Then, Vancouver comes home to host Vegas and San Jose before the final Central Division trip of the year — visiting Dallas, Chicago and St. Louis with those first two games on another back-to-back.
The March schedule wraps up back at Rogers Arena on the 31st. The Canucks will host the Flames to kick off a five-game homestand — their last one of the year.
APRIL: 4 home games, 3 road games
The NHL's regular season will wrap up on Thursday, April 13th. Vancouver will be among the 30 of 32 teams in action on the final day. Presumably, that'll set up the playoffs to start that weekend — although that's a pretty tight turnaround if they hope to get going on Saturday.
The Canucks will start the month at home, against L.A., Seattle, Chicago and Calgary — again. They'll wrap up the regular-season schedule with one last three-in-four road trip — back-to-back games in L.A. and Anaheim, then finishing up in Arizona.
If the Blackhawks and the Coyotes are all in on Connor Bedard at that point, the Canucks may be getting a bit of a gift by seeing both those teams twice each in the last month of the season. But as usual, the NHL heavily loads the back part of the schedule with in-division and in-conference games which could have playoff implications. If the Canucks and Kings are duking it out for playoff positioning again next season, for instance, they'll face each other three times in the last month. At the other end of the spectrum, Vancouver will be done with the Oilers by January 21, which is a change from most recent years.
Given what we've heard about how management groups are given the opportunity to provide input on what they'd like to see in their schedule, I was curious to see if there would be noticeable differences in how the games laid out for Vancouver this year. Without doing a full statistical analysis, at a glance it looks to me like the new braintrust has chosen to shorten the duration of road trips — favoring more back-to-back sets but fewer total days away from home? If true, I imagine that would save a few bucks in travel costs. But probably more importantly, maybe more days at home is a better formula for a healthier, better-rested group than trying to build more space around road games?
And it's hard to have anything direct to compare to. Last season's final schedule was still impacted by Covid cancellations and re-schedulings and originally had an Olympic break, so it didn't turn out as intended. We'd have to go all the way back to 2018-19 to look at the last full regular season that wasn't disrupted, and that was pre-Seattle, in the 31-team league.
For total miles travelled this season, I found this chart:
Not surprisingly, the Canucks will still travel the seventh-highest number of miles — including the teams that go to Europe for the Global Series games.
A couple of surprises that jump out at me, though:
• Florida will be the most-travelled Eastern Conference team, with more total miles than the Canucks
• Somehow, L.A. comes out below the league average, with 4,000 fewer miles than the next-lowest team in the Pacific (Calgary)
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