By John Kreiser | NHL.com columnist
Sept. 29, 2006
Like every other team, the New York Islanders don't know where they'll start the season until the NHL schedule comes out. But more than any other team over the past 35 years, the Islanders have a good idea of where they won't be -- at home.
For the 30th time in their 34 NHL seasons, the Islanders are opening their season away from the Nassau Coliseum. Since beginning their NHL existence with seven straight home games in 1972, the Isles have opened at home only three times: 1980, 1995 (after the work stoppage) and 1998.
Since 1972, no team has opened the season on the road as many times as the Islanders. In fact, they've opened in Los Angeles (one of the stops on their season-opening road trip) more often than they've opened on Long Island. They've played better, too -- they're 3-2-0 when opening in L.A., but just 2-2-0 at home.
Overall, the Islanders are 8-17 with eight ties on opening night. That includes a 6-15-8 record in their 29 openers on the road. The last time they won their opener was 2001-02, when they topped Tampa Bay, 3-2, on the way to a season-opening sweep of their four-game trip. Since then, they're 0-3 and have been outscored 18-6.
John Kreiser, who has covered the NHL since 1975, is NHL.com's man behind the numbers. His column appears each weekend on NHL.com.
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This season's opener against the Coyotes marks the first time the Islanders have opened in Phoenix (or Winnipeg, the Coyotes' former home). But it's the 10th time they've started the season with a Western trip of three or more games -- though they haven't started out West since 1996-97.
At least the Islanders aren't opening in Buffalo, where they dropped their openers in 2002 and 2005, giving up six goals in each time.
Guests Of Honor -- When the Islanders finally get to the Coliseum for their home opener, their opponents will be the Boston Bruins, who start the season by playing their first five games away from home. In all, the Bruins are the opposition for four teams' home openers (Florida, Tampa Bay, St. Louis and the Islanders), more than any other team. Calgary, St. Louis, Ottawa and Vancouver are the only other teams with more than one.
Opening on the road is unusual for the Bruins, though having a long trip in October isn't. This is only the third time in the last 30 full seasons that the Bruins have opened away from Boston -- the others were in 1993 and 2002. But in every season since 1975-76, the Bruins have had a long October trip (five or more games, except for a four-game Western swing in 1996). This year's five-gamer is the shortest since a similar trip in 2000.
Home, Sweet Home -- If there's a team that can empathize with the Islanders, it's the Anaheim Ducks. This is the Ducks' 12th opener since entering the NHL in 1993, but only the third time they've started their season at the Arrowhead Pond -- they lost the first game in franchise history to Detroit and beat Minnesota, 3-1, in 2000. Overall, the Ducks are 3-8 on opening night (2-7 on the road), but have won two of their last three openers.
Perhaps as a way of making up for past years, the schedule-maker gave the Ducks and their fans a chance to get used to their new (non-Mighty) name: Anaheim plays seven of its first eight games in Southern California (six at home, one in Los Angeles). The other is a Game 2 trip to Phoenix that comes before a five-game homestand.
Slow Starters -- At least the Ducks and Islanders can blame some of their opening-night woes on the schedule-maker. The San Jose Sharks have no excuse. The Sharks start the season on Oct. 5 against the St. Louis Blues at the HP Pavilion trying to win their first season-opener in the 21st century. The Sharks are 2-10-2 in season-openers, even though they opened at home nine times nine times in their first 14 seasons. They are 2-6-1 in those games, 0-4 on the road and tied the Flames in 1998 when San Jose and Calgary opened the season with two games in Japan.
The Sharks also have what looks like the toughest road trip of the season. San Jose and Philadelphia both have eight-game trips, the longest in the NHL this season, But while the Flyers play all eight games of their annual post-Christmas sojourn in the Eastern time zone, the Sharks start in the Pacific time zone (Anaheim) and play four in the Central time zone and two in the East before ending the trip in the Mountain time zone (Calgary).
Battles Of Alberta -- For only the fourth time since the Flames moved to Calgary from Atlanta in 1980, they're starting their season against their provincial rivals, the Edmonton Oilers. But there are a pair of firsts in the Battle of Alberta this season. For the first time, the teams open with a home-and-home series against each other -- Game 1 in Edmonton on Oct. 5; the rematch in Calgary two nights later. Also, for the first time, they start and end the season against each other -- the teams meet in the season finale on April 7 in Calgary.
