Back-to-back games are a necessary evil

From Dan Wood of the Orange County Register:

A scheduling challenge that NHL players, coaches and observers viewed as a tremendous disadvantage not so long ago has become nothing more than a necessary evil, with the less thought given to it, the better.

It used to be that when a team had to play a second game in two nights, against a fresh opponent, the “tired” team was considered to be in a huge hole. In today’s NHL, however, a large percentage of games feature exactly that scenario.

The Ducks, for example, will play 18 sets of back-to-back games this season, and on only two occasions will their second-night opponent also have played the night before. Seventeen times, meanwhile, the Ducks will face a club that has played the night before, with the Ducks also on the second night of a back-to-back in two of those instances.

Read the entire entry here.

As Wood states, unless you lessen the number of games per season (no chance because it cuts into revenue) then back-to-backs will continue to be as prevelant as they are now.