Just call it another little quirk in the NHL schedule during an Olympic year.
For only the fourth time for any NHL team in the past three seasons, the Toronto Maple Leafs will play four games in five days beginning tonight at home against the Florida Panthers. Tomorrow, the Leafs will play in Philadelphia, followed by a stop in Buffalo on Friday before returning to the Air Canada Centre to face the Pittsburgh Penguins on Saturday.
Coming off a December with 16 games - only the Montreal Canadiens and Ottawa Senators played more - and with 15 more in January, Toronto could be weary come the Olympic break in mid-February.
"I prefer playing a lot, but I don't like playing four games in five nights," Leafs coach Ron Wilson said. "We just have to be prepared to play four games a week now the rest of the way with a break here or there."
Asked yesterday about the havoc the 14-day break in play can cause, Leafs' general manager Brian Burke recalled his involvement in creating the NHL schedule in 1997-98 - the first year NHL players were involved in the Olympics - when he was the league's director of hockey operations.
"It worked out to an additional game every three weeks or 18 days or something like that," Burke said. "It wasn't a crushing burden. But yes, it's compression and I do worry. We're going to have several guys in the Olympics, and we're going to be one of the teams that's affected by it.
"When everyone says 'oh we gotta go to the Olympics, we gotta go to the Olympics,' they don't talk about the schedule and the impact on the players."
Six members of the Leafs were named to their respective countries' Olympic squads over the holidays, although centre Mikhail Grabovski's participation with Belarus is in doubt due to a broken wrist that will keep him out the next six weeks.
The San Jose Sharks lead the NHL with eight Olympians, followed by the Anaheim Ducks, Boston Bruins, Detroit Red Wings and Vancouver Canucks with seven each. The Leafs are tied with five other teams for the sixth highest number of players headed to the Games.
Even so, Burke said he has had plenty of experience with difficult schedules while GM of the Canucks and Ducks and isn't about to grouse about one ugly week that involves four games in the Eastern time zone.
"Having worked in the West, I don't think teams in the East should complain about the schedule much," he said.
Those complaints will likely be coming out of Calgary this week, where the Flames are in the midst of two sets of four games in five nights in the span of 14 days. According to hockey statistician Dirk Hoag, who compiles information on the NHL schedule at ontheforecheck.com, Calgary also has the league's most gruelling travel plan this season with 89,000 kilometres to log while going to and from 41 road games.
The Leafs will travel only 52,000 kilometres this season, which ranks 25th in the NHL. The Buffalo Sabres will have the fewest frequent flyer miles at the end of the year with just 41,700.
While a few members of the Leafs have quietly grumbled about the team's schedule this season, given it's considerably wackier than in years past, winger Jason Blake said yesterday that he didn't mind the grind.
"Everyone else is doing it too, so it's not like [it's unfair]" Blake said. "I like it that way, I like playing. It's been a lot of travel, but that's the way it is."
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GAME SHEET
Notes One of the biggest concerns for the Toronto Maple Leafs during the team's 2-5-2 slide has been the lack of offensive output from sniper Phil Kessel, who has only one point in his last eight games. Part of the issue for Kessel has been his inability to produce on the power play. "With Phil in the lineup, I think sometimes we look to get him the puck too much," head coach Ron Wilson said. "Phil's got to change some of the habits that he has. He's pretty easy to shut down when he only plays in one area of the ice." ... Wilson said netminder Jonas Gustavsson will get his sixth start in eight games against the Florida Panthers tonight, but that both his goalies will play this week. ... The world junior tournament was a big topic of conversation at practice yesterday, with Wilson giving his Swedish players a hard time after the American team defeated Sweden in last Sunday's semi-final. "I was trying to collect some money from Swedes today," Wilson joked. "I told them they owed me a hundred, and that if the Swedes had won, I would have paid them a hundred. They didn't believe me, though."
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James Mirtle