Rochester started a back-to-back Friday against Syracuse, meets the Crunch again Wednesday and has another back-to-back before the deadline April 9-10 against Utica and Cleveland, respectively.
That would be five more games for the likes of Mattias Samulesson, Jack Quinn and Ukko-Pekka Luukkonen to be ready for a call. The same applies for Arttu Ruotsalainen, who just returned to practice a few days ago.
• It’s pretty easy to see there’s a huge travel advantage in the East Division. Teams in the North are crisscrossing Canada, teams in the West are going to and from California from places such as Dallas, St. Louis and Minnesota and the Central stretches from Detroit to Florida.
But in the East, no one leaves the Eastern time zone. And check out this nugget: Following Saturday’s game in KeyBank Center, the Rangers are scheduled to play a franchise-record 17 consecutive games in the New York metro area from April 6 to May 5 (11 in Madison Square Garden, four in Nassau Coliseum on Long Island and two at New Jersey’s Prudential Center in Newark).
According to NHL Stats and Information, the longest previous run was 12 during the 1991-92 season (nine games at MSG, plus two at the Meadowlands in New Jersey and one in the Coliseum).
• The regular season schedule has already been stretched to May 11 and it will be interesting how much further the NHL might need to go. Vancouver’s four-game Covid pause makes things dicey in the North Division and there’s still more than a month to go. To date, it appears every team will get to 56 games. But more outbreaks, especially later in April, could bring points percentage into play if all teams don’t get to 56.