With the NHL’s schedule release set for this week, every team is about to get a little more of the real thing and a little less of the dress rehearsal. The league is moving to an 84-game regular season, which means one extra home date and one extra road game for each franchise. The NHL Players Association agreed to the change during the latest collective bargaining talks, and in exchange the preseason gets trimmed.
For owners, the math is easy. Regular-season games bring in far more money than preseason games, so this is a clear win on that side of the ledger. For players, the picture is more complicated.
Two extra games does not sound like much, but the numbers can swing a season in a hurry. The increase works out to 2.44%.
That’s tiny until it isn’t. The Edmonton Oilers missed the Pacific Division title by 2.11% last season.
The LA Kings were just 2.17% behind the Anaheim Ducks, and that gap sent them into a matchup with the Colorado Avalanche. It also meant Edmonton didn’t get its usual Round 1 opponent, and the what-ifs from a different bracket are obvious.
The same kind of percentage can reshape a sport over a much bigger sample, too. Major League Baseball plays 162 games, and even there the margin matters.
In 1992, when the Blue Jays won their first World Series, they finished four games ahead of the Milwaukee Brewers for the final playoff spot. That 2.4% edge changed the course of the franchise, because without that first championship, the second one might never have followed.
That’s the real weight of the NHL’s new schedule: the standings points that can turn on a single night late in the year. Four extra points are now in play, and there will almost certainly be wild-card spots decided in Game 83 or 84. The team that loses one of those races won’t just be missing out on a tiebreaker; it’ll be missing a postseason it otherwise would have reached.
And the shift is about more than the standings. Preseason games and regular-season games are not the same kind of wear on a body.
In the exhibition slate, most players are not flying around at full speed. Injuries can happen, but they’re usually the kind that come from bad luck rather than the full-force collision course of meaningful hockey.
Once the games count, especially with the Stanley Cup Playoffs closing in, the intensity changes. So does the risk.
There is another side to that, of course. Extra regular-season games can also give injured players more time to heal.
Leon Draisaitl might have been even more effective in Round 1 against the Anaheim Ducks if he had had two more games to get right. Jason Dickinson is another example after he reaggravated a late-season injury with his early return.
Still, more games means more exposure, and that is where the danger lives. Somewhere in this new 84-game grind, fate is going to take a swing at one team. Hopefully, it won’t be the Oilers.
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Oilers Just Took Another High Stakes Swing At Their Biggest Problem
The Oilers have spent plenty of time looking for answers in goal, and this latest move shows they are still treating the position like the biggest item on their to-do list. Edmonton has already reshaped its goaltending group with Tristan Jarry, Devon Levi and Frederik Andersen, a clear sign the organization is trying to give itself more than one path forward after cycling through different options.
Levi is the name that stands out most in that mix, because the upside is obvious and the fit feels like it could matter over time. With Jarry and Andersen in the room, the Oilers are also giving themselves some insulation as they try to bring Levi along, but the real question is whether this swing finally gives them the stability they have been chasing. [Read more 🡒]
Oilers Still Have One Unsettled Decision That Could Shape Everything
The Oilers are still sorting through a few roster questions that could ripple beyond opening night, and the most pressing one is in goal. Edmonton is set to begin the season with three NHL-caliber options and no clear starter, a setup that suggests the club may lean on a fairly even workload early while it figures out who can separate from the pack. For a team trying to stay in the thick of the Western Conference race, that kind of uncertainty is hard to ignore.
There is also a quieter contract decision taking shape elsewhere on the roster, with Matt Savoies next deal potentially influenced by the recent Cole Perfetti extension. Edmonton may prefer to think long term rather than settle for a bridge arrangement, especially if the market continues to reward young talent in that tier. It is the sort of front-office call that does not grab headlines right away, but it can end up shaping the teams flexibility for years. [Read more 🡒]
Evander Kane Feels Like The Flames Debate Fans Dread Most
Evander Kane is back on the open market after a full season with the Vancouver Canucks, and his name is already circulating in the kind of conversations that tend to follow a veteran winger with a long track record and a recent injury history. At this stage of his career, the appeal is pretty clear: a proven scorer, plenty of edge, and enough experience that teams can picture him fitting into more than one kind of lineup.
For Edmonton, the intrigue is easy to understand because the Oilers have been linked to the same sort of low-cost, low-commitment path that could make sense for a player like Kane. A professional tryout would let everyone take a longer look before anything more permanent, and a one-year deal would keep the risk manageable if the fit is there, especially with the club still sorting through its forward depth and the uncertainty around some of its other options. [Read more 🡒]