NHL Schedule Structure

Before I get into to the 48-game schedule, I wanted to start with the regular 82 games. I knew that in the NBA every team plays every at least twice, so that every team gets to host every team. Makes good sense when you have recognizable stars, you want fans in every NBA city to have a chance to go see them.

I just assumed that's what they did in the NHL. But nope.

82-game Structure
15 games: 1 game against each non-conference team
3 games: 1 extra game against three non-conference teams
40 games: 4 games against in-conference, non-division teams (two home, two away)
24 games: 6 games against division teams (three home, three away)


So your team will play every team every year. But there will be six teams that you don't get a home game with, and six teams that you don't visit their arenas.

48-game Structure

Let's recreate the NHL's decisions and subtract from the 82.

We'll cut the non-conference schedule completely. Now we're at 64.

If we go from 4 to 3 games in the in-conference, non-division schedule, that saves us 10. Down to 54.

So we need to cut 6 games.

If we just go to 5 division games, that only saves us 4 and leaves us at 50.

Fuck it, 18 total division games. 4 games against two teams. And 5 against the other two. 48. Done.