Back to Back Games

by Jonathan Willis on Jul 16, 2009 1:46 PM MDT in Analysis

RiversQ, one of the writers over at Irreverent Oiler Fans and an occasional commenter here, wrote a post back in October of 2008 talking about how in the vast majority of cases, the second half of a back-to-back set of games is played on the road.

It's stuck with me because it makes a world of sense for a number of reasons, the most obvious of which is that it helps pad the home record of most clubs - something of obvious importance, since it's a lot easier to convince people to buy tickets to watch a win than a loss.

With that in mind, I've taken a look at the Oilers' schedule for next season to see if the trend continued in this town.

The Oilers' schedule for next season is surprisingly fair, given how much they struggled last season (and especially in comparison with the Flames' schedule). They fly fewer miles and play fewer back-to-backs than last season; in fact, the Oilers and Ottawa play fewer back-to-back games than any other team in the league.

Here are the back-to-back games Edmonton will play this season:

October 25th @ Vancouver
November 11th @ Buffalo
November 16th @ Columbus
November 28th @ Vancouver
December 3rd @ Calgary
February 4th @ Minnesota
February 11th @ Los Angeles
March 3rd @ Chicago
March 16th @ Minnesota
April 3rd @ Phoenix
April 11th @ Anaheim

Notice anything peculiar about that list? Like how every single game is a road game? Basically, this means that 26.8% of Edmonton's road schedule will be comprised of the second game of back-to-back games. If this is a common trend throughout the league (and everything I've seen suggests that it is) we could be looking at the biggest factor in the differential between home and road records.

Anyways, I also took a look at the teams playing Edmonton to see which opponents would be playing their second game in as many nights. Here's that list:

October 25th @ Vancouver
November 18 vs. Colorado
December 15th vs. Los Angeles
December 19th vs. Washington
December 21st vs. St. Louis
December 28th vs. Calgary
December 31st @ Calgary
January 12th vs. Nashville
January 14th vs. Pittsburgh
January 22nd vs. Dallas
January 28th vs. St. Louis
February 14th vs. Anaheim
March 3rd @ Chicago
April 5th vs. Minnesota
April 7th vs. Colorado

Twelve of those fifteen games are home games, and all three road games take place in cities where Edmonton will also be playing their second game in two nights.

I really don't think this is a coincidence - I think the NHL schedulers have (quite smartly) slanted things in favour of the home team; after all, a fan is more likely to come back if he just watched his team win.

Outside of this conspiracy theory, this also goes to show how the schedule favours the Oilers this season, at least in terms of back-to-back games.

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Hey Jonathan,

I did a study on the subject of back-to-back games in January that you can find here:
http://gospelofhockey.blogspot.com/2009/01/effect-of-back-to-back-games.html

JavaGeek did a follow up that used more data that you can find here:
http://hockeynumbers.blogspot.com/2009/02/back-to-back-game-statistics.html

The upshot is that about 25% of road games are back to backs across the league and that there is a real effect on road teams on the back half, i.e. they’re about 4-6% less likely to get points. It doesn’t explain all of the difference between home and road records but it does explain some of the difference.

by Scott Reynolds on Jul 16, 2009 1:58 PM MDT reply actions

Thanks for the links, Scott – that’s an absolutely dynamite post you did up, and I’m sorry that I missed it earlier.

4-6% seemed really low to me, but after looking I see you mean a 4-6% reduction in expected winning percentage – and 6% out of 51% is actually a 12% reduction in that team’s odds of recording points. This is significant.

A posse ad esse.

Writer for The Copper & Blue and OilersNation.

by Jonathan Willis on Jul 16, 2009 2:14 PM MDT reply actions

Yeah, there does still seem to be a bit of weighting in the halves by visual inspection (more home-heavy in the first half, more road-heavy in the second), but nothing on the order of ridiculous we saw last year, with six of the first twenty-four then sixteen of the next twenty-two at home or something stupid like that.

SNN Sports - A theoretical Oilers blog (i.e. theoretically, I write stuff there)

by Doogie2K on Jul 16, 2009 2:37 PM MDT reply actions

Sorry if this was mentioned in the links you’ve provided, but I would tend to think that having the 2nd game of back-to-back’s on the road has less to do with wanting to give the home teams an advantage, and more to do with shortening roadtrips. More back-to-backs on the road means less money spent on travel costs, and less time away for the players, coaches, trainers, etc.

Of course, that only makes sense if the first game of the back-to-back is also on the road, which I haven’t checked myself.

by ykmisfit on Jul 16, 2009 2:49 PM MDT reply actions

Found this link in a discussion of the 2009-10 schedule, and was intrigued enough to do a little research… and I suspect Oiler fans won’t be thrilled by it. :)

There are exactly two teams in the NHL who don’t have a back-to-back pair end with a home game this season. Columbus has 8 home-road and 4 road-road pairs, and your Oilers have 3 home-road and 8 road-road pairs.

Overall, there are 34 home-home pairs, 125 home-road, 115 road-home, and 178 road-road pairs. So 149 back-to-back pairs end at home, 303 end on the road. I’d say your theory pans out here… as does Gospel’s – those 303 games are just barely under 25% of the 1230 games played this season.

To keep this on-topic for the Oilers, the rest of your division looks like this…

Calgary: 14 – 1 home-home, 2 home-road, 2 road-home, 9 road-road
Colorado: 16 – 1 h/h, 2 h/r, 3 r/h, 10 r/r
Minnesota: 15 – 0 h/h, 5 h/r, 2 r/h, 8 r/r
Vancouver: 14 – 3 h/h, 1 h/r, 3 r/h, 7 r/r

From Richmond, VA – roughly halfway between the Ovechkins and the Whalercanes, and disinterested in both

by Robster2001 on Jul 18, 2009 8:58 PM MDT reply actions

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Northwest Standings

	GP	W	L	OTL	PT
Vancouver Nucks Misconduct	52	32	15	5	69
Minnesota Hockey Wilderness	51	25	19	7	57
Colorado Mile High Hockey	54	26	25	3	55
Calgary Matchsticks and Gasoline	52	24	22	6	54
Edmonton The Copper & Blue	51	20	26	5	45

(updated 2.4.2012 at 4:07 PM MST)

20 - 26 - 5

Streak: Won 2

Oilers Schedule

Next 5 Games

Detroit Winging It In Motown	Sat 02/04	8:00 PM MST
@ Toronto Pension Plan Puppets	Mon 02/06	5:00 PM MST
@ Detroit Winging It In Motown	Wed 02/08	5:30 PM MST
@ Ottawa Silver Seven	Sat 02/11	12:00 PM MST
Toronto Pension Plan Puppets	Wed 02/15	8:00 PM MST

Last 5 Games

Chicago Second City Hockey	Thu 02/02	W 8 - 4
Colorado Mile High Hockey	Tue 01/31	W 3 - 2
@ Vancouver Nucks Misconduct	Tue 01/24	SO - L 2 - 3
San Jose Fear The Fin	Mon 01/23	SO - W 2 - 1
Calgary Matchsticks and Gasoline	Sat 01/21	L 2 - 6