The 2011-12 NHL Black & Blue Schedule

Last year, On Goal Analysis (OGA) offered up the notion of an NHL Black & Blue schedule – pairs of games played back-to-back, home and away, with no other opponents in between to distract team focus on their foe. (See http://theogablog.blogspot.com/2010/09/2010-11-black-and-blue-schedule-colonel.html )

There were three premises to the Black & Blue Schedule theory:

1. The opposite team will win game two

2. The likelihood of the game going into OT / SO is higher in game two

3. There will be more penalty minutes awarded in game two

While the theory was only about 40% correct, we followed the schedule and found an additional characteristic of these games: 15 of 30 / 50% of Game Two’s ended in a one goal difference.

To say the least, these pairs of games are very entertaining.

Here is the Black & Blue schedule for the 2011-12 NHL season:

7 – 8 OCT DAL vs CHI
15 – 17 OCT FLA vs TBL
15 – 18 OCT DAL vs CBJ
20 – 22 OCT COL vs CHI
22 – 25 OCT TBL vs BUF
25 – 27 OCT NYI vs PIT
27 – 29 OCT BOS vs MTL
29 OCT – 1 NOV MIN vs DET
11 – 12 NOV NJD vs WSH
16 – 17 NOV LAK vs ANA
25 – 26 NOV NYI vs NJD
25 – 26 NOV TBL vs FLA
30 NOV – 2 DEC TOR vs BOS
13 – 15 DEC COL vs SJS
7 – 8 JAN PHI vs OTT
10 – 12 JAN COL vs NSH
10 – 13 JAN TOR vs BUF
23 – 24 JAN TOR vs NYI
31 JAN – 1 FEB PIT vs TOR
4 – 6 MAR MIN VS COL
8 – 10 MAR NJD vs NYI
10 – 11 MAR STL vs CBJ
11 – 13 MAR NJD vs PHI
14 – 16 MAR MTL vs OTT
24 – 26 MAR DAL vs CGY
26 – 28 MAR DET vs CBJ
27 – 29 MAR PIT vs NYI
31 MAR – 3 APR SJS vs DAL
31 MAR – 3 APR TOR vs BUF
5 – 7 APR SJS vs LAK

Thirty more pairs, 18 of which are intra-divisional games. OGA will be following the trends closely!