After a predictably long wait for the lawyers working on the CBA Memo of Understanding to run up their billable hours, finally the NHL was open for business as of midnight.  With the MOU signed, sealed and delivered at last along with the players’ ratification, schedules finally were able to be published late last night.  There’s generally some good and bad in every schedule.  Derek’s Rangers, for example have ‘only’ six back-to-backs which is a plus, though two are coming right off the hop as the Rangers begin their schedule with a tough four game in six night stretch playing the Bruins twice, at Philly and their home opener against the Penguins.  New York’s longest homestand and road trip are four games apiece (once), with the four game road trip coming in early March, going to Washington, Buffalo, Winnipeg and Pittsburgh in the span of a week – yes they only have one day off before and after going to Winnipeg.

New Jersey on the other hand, made out surprisingly well with their schedule.  Yes, the Devils have ten back to backs but with goalies Martin Brodeur and Johan Hedberg they’re at least equipped to handle it in net.  What’s key is none of those back-to-backs come in January, and the team can get its sea legs a little before the schedule starts to tighten up in February.  Also travel is farcially easy (even compared to other East teams), considering the team only gets one Florida trip, as well as one trip to Winnipeg.  Only that Winnipeg game on the last day of February is out of the EST, and even that’s an 8 PM start local time, with three travel days before the game – though only one after it as the team goes to Buffalo immediately after.

In the category of weirdness, the Devils have back-to-back road games in Washington over a three-day span…but I ain’t complaining, one less charter for the team to get on.  Also, the Devils play the Flyers and Islanders the extra division game and not the Rangers.  The teams won’t even meet in Madison Square Garden until the final week of the regular season (when they have ‘two’ games there, including the season finale), which is unfathomable.  That final game of the season – Saturday, April 27 – could have major impact, or just be a tuneup game for one or both teams going into the playoffs.  The teams’ first meeting since their memorable Conference Final is Tuesday February 5, 7 PM at the Prudential Center.

Looking at the Isles’ schedule real quick, they only have seven back to backs but the league really didn’t do them any favors with an ugly five-game eight-day road trip all throughout North America after their opening two-game homestand.  Toronto on the 24th, Boston on the 25th, Winnipeg on the 27th, Pittsburgh on the 29th and New Jersey on the 31st is just brutal.  While the Isles do have a whopping seven-game homestand in late February and early March to balance that out, they also end the season with a difficult five-game road trip (in nine days) travelwise to Toronto, Winnipeg, Carolina, Philadelphia and Buffalo.  Incredibly, the Isles also only have four games with the Rangers, and both their trips to the Garden in an eight-day span in early February though they do have five with us, so the Battle of NY standings will be slightly uneven this year.

Of course we all have to remember scheduling’s going to be an inexact science this year with having to add on an extra couple of weeks at the end of the season, and changing things around to accomodate an all-conference schedule.  Even the schedule format itself seemed to be a debate till the very last minute, with the original version being a lopsided seven division game to two conference game format.  Plus the league wanted to get in 50 games (which would have been five division games/three conference games), but delays on all fronts hindered that so they eventually settled on 48 games by chopping off a pair of division tilts.  It does make you wonder what would have happened if the NHL had literally gone up to the deadline negotiating the CBA, would the entire schedule have to be pushed back a week or would it have been chopped up even further, past Bettman’s 48-game mandate?

At least now the waiting’s over, in any case.  Teams can sign UFA’s, RFA’s and make trades and with less than a week to go before the puck drops at 3 PM Saturday, it’ll be a mad scramble not unlike the trade deadline.  Incidentally, this year’s trade deadline will be on April 3, three and a half weeks before the end of the season.  In the Devils’ case they’ll have played 36 of their 48 games before then, so teams should have a good idea whether they’re contenders or not.  On the other hand, with fewer games, more teams will be in it longer, so we’ll see how that – and last year’s decreased cap – impacts the trade deadline.

The latest date the season can end is on Thursday, June 28.  That Friday and Saturday was supposed to be the two-day NHL draft at the Prudential Center, but instead both rounds will be crammed into one day – Sunday the 31st.  Free agency will begin July 5, so there won’t be much time to get out of hockey mode before planning for next year begins in earnest.  Final planning for this year is already underway, and as I wrote earlier, the puck will drop next Saturday at 3 PM with three games –  including the Kings’ long awaited banner-raising (with the Blackhawks coming to town) as well as Pittsburgh going to Philly and Ottawa traveling to Winnipeg.

Both US games will be on NBC, depending on market while Ottawa-Winnipeg commences a HNIC tripleheader that also includes Montreal-Toronto in primetime at 7 and Anaheim-Vancouver at 10.  All three local teams begin their seasons at 7, with the Rangers traveling to Boston in another Original Six tilt, while the Devils and Isles square off on Long Island.  Only Buffalo, San Jose, Calgary and Edmonton have to wait another day to drop the puck on their seasons.  Next Sunday’s national TV games include Philly at Buffalo on NBC at 12:30 and Chicago traveling to Phoenix in a playoff rematch at 10 PM on NBCSN.  Both Rangers games will be on the NHL Network, but that doesn’t affect us local fans who get the Rangers, Isles and Devils on all the MSG channels.  NHL Network will have a season preview tonight at 7 PM, probably will provide a good primer for those of us that forgot the offseason moves and changes pre-NHL war.

What also remains to be seen – aside from all the remaining signings and trades before Saturday – is just what the NHL and most individual teams plan to do to ‘make whole’ their customers, many of whom have been pushed to the point of distraction and beyond by the NHL’s third lengthy labor stoppage in two decades.  We don’t know yet the substance of anything the league or teams will do, but the above video is at least a better start asthetically than ‘Thank You Fans’ or their bad stock-actor commercials coming out of the last lockout.