Team travel schedules influence Hatze Petros. He tries to minimize each team's overall mileage each season. It adds another complicating factor to the scheduling.

"Once the dates are in place and the broadcast schedules are in place, we look for natural gaps in a team's schedule," Hatze Petros said. "That's where we try to schedule a team's toughest travel blocks. For instance, if the building in Vancouver isn't available for a couple of weeks, we'll book their Southeast Division travel for that period.

"When teams travel long distances, we like to combine stops in Edmonton-Calgary-Vancouver, or Tampa Bay-Florida-Atlanta, or New York-Long Island-New Jersey, or Los Angeles-Anaheim-Phoenix-San Jose, or Nashville-St. Louis-Chicago.

Some teams in the Western Conference travel nearly 10,000 miles more than Eastern Conference teams. While many of the Eastern teams are located in the closely bunched Northeast Corridor, there are great distances between cities in the American West and on the Canadian Prairie.

The average in the Eastern Conference is about 36,000 miles while no team in the West travels less than 37,400 miles.

"It's determined by the matrix of their opponents," Hatze Petros said. "We've been working toward a more balanced matrix which is determined by the Board of Governors."

Teams play their divisional rivals five times. One year they'll have three games at home and two on the road against a rival, then it's reversed the following season. Teams play other teams in their conference four times and they play teams in the other conference at least once.

National telecasts can impact the schedule as well.

"We'll be seen again this year on ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, the CBC's Hockey Night In Canada and TSN, which is a new relationship for us this year. TSN will be carrying 60 games this year in Canada, mostly matchups between American teams," Bredin said.

The French-language network, RDS, will be carrying Canadiens games and other games that don't conflict with Montreal's games.

"We try to slot 'specialty games' in the network slots. Los Angeles will retire Wayne Gretzky's No. 99 sweater this year so we scheduled the Phoenix Coyotes for the Kings' opening game at the Staples Center on Oct. 9 because Gretzky is part of the Coyotes' management. That game will be seen on ESPN2 at 10:30 p.m. ET. At 8 p.m. ET on Oct. 9, ESPN2 will show the New York Rangers-Carolina Hurricanes game in the East and the Dallas Stars-Colorado Avalanche game in the rest of the U.S.

"The first Hockey Night In Canada on Oct. 12 will feature the Toronto Maple Leafs against the Ottawa Senators at 7 p.m. ET. The Philadelphia Flyers-Calgary Flames will be shown after that, but viewers in British Columbia will see the San Jose Sharks against the Vancouver Canucks.

"Feb. 1 is Hockey Day In Canada on the CBC. We'll have Edmonton at Montreal at 4 p.m. ET; Ottawa at Toronto at 7 p.m. ET and Vancouver at Calgary at 10 p.m. ET."

Every NHL team will appear on a national telecast this year.

Thanks in large part to the men who do a great juggling act to get it all together.