NHL Trends - Back to Back games

Horse Racing stats man, Andy has contributed to OLBG for 18 years - An Ipswich fan and F1 fanatic, he also contributes EFL football and Motor Sport opinion.

We're now almost two months into the NHL season and it's time to take a first look at one of the trends I want to explore during the season which is the impact of back to back games on teams.

Back to back games are common in the NHL and all teams will play their fair share of them and it's how the 2nd game turns out that I want to focus on.

Eastern Conference

TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	OVERTIME LOSSES
Montreal Canadiens	4	0	0
Tampa Bay Lightning	2	3	0
Boston Bruins	0	3	0
Detroit Red Wings	1	0	1
Ottawa Senators	0	2	0
Toronto Maple Leafs	2	1	1
Florida Panthers	0	0	1
Buffalo Sabres	2	3	0
Pittsburgh Penguins	1	0	1
New York Islanders	2	1	0
Washington Capitals	1	3	0
NY Rangers	0	2	0
Philadelphia Flyers	1	3	0
Columbus Blue Jackets	1	4	0

Western Conference

TEAM	WINS	LOSSES	OVERTIME LOSSES
Nashville Predators	0	0	1
St. Louis Blues	1	1	0
Winnipeg Jets	1	1	1
Chicago Blackhawks	1	1	0
Minnesota Wild	2	0	0
Colorado Avalanche	0	1	1
Dallas Stars	0	3	0
Anaheim Ducks	2	1	0
Calgary Flames	2	0	0
Vancouver Canucks	1	3	1
Los Angeles Kings	1	2	0
San Jose Sharks	2	2	0
Arizona Coyotes	2	1	0
Edmonton Oilers	1	1	0

There are many factors that go into playing on back to back nights. Many NHL teams will rotate their goaltenders and depending on the matchup may play their backup in Game One. As you can see above, the number of games played ranges from one to five so this early in the season it doesn't serve much purpose to break down the stats even further but in my next blog I'll be looking at the effects of the goaltender decision and how teams react to losing or winning the previous night.

Teams to watch

Montreal Canadiens

Minnesota Wild

Calgary Flames

Teams to avoid

Boston Bruins

Columbus Blue Jackets

Dallas Stars

Vancouver Canucks

Games to pay attention to over the next 4 weeks

Nov 22nd Montreal Canadiens @ Boston Bruins

Nov 23rd Montreal Canadiens @ New York Rangers

Dec 6th Montreal Canadiens @ Dallas Stars

Dec 17th Boston Bruins @ Minnesota Wild The above games aren't the only back to back games between now and Christmas but they are the four that I've picked out between teams who have a good record in back to back games and teams who have a poor record in back to back games.

When the lines become available for those games, I'll post them in the comments section below.

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