(Photo Credit: SinBin.vegas Photographer Brandon Andreasen)
An NHL season is like cycling through the most challenging course on the Peloton bike… for six months straight. There are homestands, road trips, back-to-backs, and all sorts of weird quirks that pop up because half the teams in the league play in the same stadium as NBA teams.
This year’s Golden Knights schedule is no different, and like every Pacific Division team, there are some high peaks and some low valleys.
Softest Spots
October 23 – November 2nd
vs COL, vs ANA, vs MTL, vs WPG
After what is a bit of a tricky opening few weeks of the season riddled with tough opponents, single-game road trips, and a back-t0-back in different time-zones with 750+ miles of travel, the schedule hits its softest spot of the year. Four home games, in an 11-day span against one good team, two okay ones, and a horrible one. The Golden Knights have two days of rest before the Colorado game and then three days prior to Montreal. They even have two more days off after the last of the four-game set. Really, the whole month of October is favorable for Vegas, and if they start it off well, the last week could turn it into one of their best months ever.
February 12th – March 3rd
vs STL, vs NYI, vs WSH, vs TBL, vs FLA, @ANA, vs EDM, vs BUF, vs LAK, NJD
Directly on the heels of the ridiculous 27-day span away from T-Mobile Arena (more on that below), the Golden Knights come home for 10 straight. (Really it’s 9 of 10, but I figure a road game in Anaheim in February is basically a home game.) The opponents are challenging at first, but they ease up majorly as it goes on. There will be 20 points to get here, the Golden Knights should reasonably be after at least 14 of them.
December 29th – January 11th
vs ANA, vs PHI, vs STL, vs PIT, vs LAK, vs CBJ
It’s the longest homestand of the year and the first 7-game homestand since the magical one that opened the inaugural season. Only six games are listed because it starts out with a road-home back-to-back, but there are two off-days behind it. This is about as nice a stretch as you can ask for on a schedule as there’s at least one day between every game and the opponents are all average at best (except for St. Louis). Of course, this is directly before the 27-day monster. It’s almost like the NHL knew they were screwing the Golden Knights, so they tried to make it up to them with two soft spots before and after the nightmare.
Hardest Spots
January 12th – February 7th
at BUF, at OTT, at MTL, at BOS, at CAR, at NSH, at TBL, at FLA
