When the Boston Bruins beat the San Jose Sharks in overtime on Sunday, it was big news not just in Boston, but around the NHL.
The Bruins were just the fourth team this year to come off their bye week — a new wrinkle in the schedule this year — and post a win. Teams are 4-12-4 in their first game after a bye, an outlook nobody likes. (One of those post-bye wins was by the Maple Leafs, who beat the Rangers, also coming off their bye week.)
The byes have been oddly staggered this year, with some coming in December and others still waiting on the schedule. The Columbus Blue Jackets and San Jose Sharks, for example, will get some nice rest starting right now, a week off at the perfect time for playoff-bound teams.
But The Star has learned changes are coming next year: There will only be two bye weeks, featuring roughly half the league in both.
“We intend to schedule the bye weeks differently next year,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told the Star in an email. “Two discrete weeks in which roughly half of the teams will get their byes.”
The bye week will be re-evaluated after the 2017-18 season, Daly said. And there is one caveat: If the NHL decides ultimately to go to the Olympics, there will be no bye week at all.
The players like the bye.
“I enjoyed it,” Ottawa Senators defenceman Dion Phaneuf said. “I got to go south, to the sun. I’m not going to complain about getting a vacation.
“This is our first year. I like the idea of the break, I think it’s great for the players to go get away from the game and recharge. I’m not sure what kind of advantage it will have if you have it before Christmas rather than after.”
The players have noticed the disparity of wins and losses, and look jealously at where other teams get their byes. The players association floated the idea of linking the bye weeks to the all-star game, with half of the league getting their days off in the week before the game, and half getting their break immediately after. Daly said that isn’t being looked at.
The bye weeks make for a compressed schedule, a lot more of three games in four nights, or five in eight. But it is a trade players will make.
“As players, we don’t mind playing our games in a short amount of time,” Islanders captain John Tavares said. “You get in a rhythm. But we had three breaks in a month (Christmas, the bye week and all-star weekend), which doesn’t make a lot of sense.
“The rest is key. There’s a way we can tweak it that makes it as fair as possible and as best for the schedule as possible.”
The 16 teams that lost their first games back were outscored 60-23. Columbus coach John Tortorella said he’d reserve judgment on the bye week until he sees how his team plays after it.
“I know the records (off a bye week) aren’t good,” Tortorella said. “I’m not sure what to think of it. But our bye week is coming at the right time. The timing is good for us.”
TRADE TALK: Avalanche forward Jarome Iginla is willing to waive his no-trade clause to go to a contender . . . If the Lightning decide to throw in the towel, winger Brian Boyle could be on the move . . . The Senators seem to be getting impatient with third-year forward Curtis Lazar and may move him for a veteran forward . . . Brian Gionta has told the Sabres he would prefer to stay in Buffalo.
RATTLING SABRES: The Buffalo Sabres have 22 games left, and need 33 points to get to 95, which is usually enough to secure a playoff spot. That’s a .750 points percentage the rest of the way, a pace they were at least able to maintain the last four games. “I feel like this year is going to be a race to the finish line,” goaltender Robin Lehner told the Buffalo News. “We’ve been playing good hockey lately, and we can’t get away from ourselves for one game. We’ve got to string games together, and I think we’re going to do that.”
WILD THINGS: The Mikael Granlund-Mikko Koivu-Jason Zucker line has been together since Nov. 25 and, in 39 games, the three have combined for 43 goals and 110 points. They are a combined plus-84. The Wild are 29-6-4 in that span. “We feed off each other pretty well,” Zucker told the Minnesota Star Tribune. “And I think we make sure we hold each other accountable when we have a bad shift, a bad play or a bad game. Whatever it is, we make sure we know what we did wrong, and we fix it.”
CATS MEOW: The Florida Panthers are 4-0-0 on a nine-day, five-city road trip through the Western Conference that winds up Tuesday in St. Louis. They saw it as a make-or-break trip. It has made them playoff contenders. “What we’ve done on this streak, and we still got a long way to go, is something to reflect back on, something to build your game on and have some confidence,” Panthers interim coach Tom Rowe told the Fort Lauderdale Sun-Sentinel. “This is a group who fought the confidence bug a little bit when they were going through a tough time, but now they’re taking advantage of feeling good and playing good hockey.”
QUICK RETURN: Sidelined with a groin injury in their season-opening loss, Los Angeles Kings netminder Jonathan Quick began working out with his teammates on Feb. 2. Quick could return in March. “Just trying to do what I can to get back out there,” Quick told the Los Angeles Times. “We still have a few more things we want to make sure are in order before they give me the nod. Things seem to be going according to plan.”
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