from Ken Campbell of The Hockey News,

The bye week has affected everything from practice time to injuries and even though everyone has to deal with it, to say it does not affect the quality of play would be wrong. It does. When teams are battered and tired, they don’t play as well. Worse, they tend to play a defensive style that can make the games boring. “Does (the compressed schedule) have something to do with the injuries?” asked Dallas Stars GM Jim Nill, whose team has been besieged by injuries this season. “I can tell you that I know we go into a lot of games a tired team.”

Along with injuries, the most dramatic effect of the bye week has been a huge reduction in practice time. Let’s say a team comes in from a road trip and they arrive home at 2 a.m. You can’t practice that day because the players are too tired and because the team got in so late, that day cannot be used as one of the four CBA-mandated days off per month to which the players are entitled. That means that in some cases two practice days have been lost....

Detroit Red Wings GM Ken Holland looks at his team’s schedule in late March and early April and cringes. Because their postponed game against Carolina was rescheduled to March 27, a stretch of seven games in 12 days has become eight games in 12 days, including games three straight nights – which never happens under normal circumstances - in two different buildings.

“Last week we had a game with six or seven players out,” Holland said. “And once you get a couple of injuries, you’re taxing your other guys. Instead of playing minor leaguers, many of those minutes go to the players who are healthy and their being taxed. And there’s no relief. It just goes on week after week, month after month.”

more with Ken Hitchcock talking about the bye week too...