from Eric Duhatschek of the Globe and Mail,
“I don’t know if it’s the new NHL, or it’s just an unusual season, or if it’s the geographic situation we’re in,” Maurice said. “Maybe we’ve just got to get used to it.”
The 2016-17 NHL season is unusual and covers 173 days altogether, once the Christmas and all-star breaks are subtracted, according to figures provided by the Elias Sports Bureau. For comparison purposes, that’s four days fewer than last year, six days fewer than the year before and seven days fewer than the year before that.
But what’s new and unique to this season is that every team has been granted a bye week – Winnipeg’s falls between Feb. 21 and 28 – for the first time in NHL history.
In effect, it means teams need to fit 82 games into 168 possible playing days – leaving them with anywhere from nine to 12 fewer available days to do so compared with the past three seasons.
Winnipeg has played the most games so far (32). Columbus has played the fewest at 26, with nine other NHL teams at 27.
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