The NHL season is built on travel and long road trips. The coast-to-coast flights, long bus rides, and games on short rest have players scrambling for food and rest (including the thread below, which happened this week involving Brent Burns). There are road trips that are exhausting because of the travel and then there are some that are brutal because of the opposition.
What did the Hurricanes do for a post game meal Saturday night after their plane broke down and they had to bus from Seattle to Vancouver?
🧵— Dan Murphy (@sportsnetmurph) October 28, 2024
The question is which road trips are the worst? Looking at the big ones around the league, there are a handful that are notably rough and affect some teams to the point where they can derail seasons. In 2019, the players were polled with their opinions on which arenas and cities they preferred as visitors and which places are the toughest to play. On top of that, it’s worth noting that some road trips were particularly brutal in previous eras, specifically, the first one on this list.
Southern California (Ducks & Kings)
It’s easy to forget how difficult this road trip was for opponents in the 2010s. From 2010-11 until 2017-18, the Anaheim Ducks and Los Angeles Kings reached the playoffs a combined 14 times with the Kings winning the Stanley Cup in 2012 and 2014 as well. This road trip required opponents to face two of the best teams in the league often on consecutive nights.
Both teams haven’t been dominant in recent seasons and the Ducks are still rebuilding, making them an easy team to defeat at the Honda Center. However, this road trip is still one that teams in the Eastern Conference hate as they have to travel to the Pacific Coast knowing they’ll probably drop one of the two games. It’s no longer a rough trip but the next trip out west still is.
Pacific Northwest (Canucks & Kraken)
For most of the teams in the Eastern Conference, this is the dreaded stretch of the season. Sure, the fans aren’t happy about staying up late for games that start at 10:00 PM Eastern time but the players have to travel to the opposite end of the continent and face two great teams.
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The Seattle Kraken have been hit or miss since their inaugural 2021-22 season but the Vancouver Canucks have become one of the best teams in the NHL in recent seasons and have been dominant on their home ice. Last season, they went 27-9-5 at home to turn Rogers Arena into a place where they could rack up the wins.
A lot of teams that fly out to the Pacific Northwest struggle against both the Canucks and the Kraken but one of the most notable teams to fall apart on the trip has been the Florida Panthers. They won the Stanley Cup title last season and have been one of the best teams in the Eastern Conference in recent seasons. They have a 6-11-2 record at Rogers Arena and Climate Pledge Arena.
It’s worth throwing the San Jose Sharks into this road trip as they are the Northern California team that is often grouped into this trip and also happens to bridge both the Pacific Northwest and the Southern California teams. The Sharks aren’t a good team these days and haven’t been since 2018-19 but in the previous decade, they were dominant at the SAP Center, making them another tough road arena for visiting teams.
Alberta (Flames & Oilers)
This road trip is brutal, especially in the winter months. Teams head up north to the cold weather for games against the Calgary Flames and the Edmonton Oilers for a stretch that isn’t forgiving. Sure, the Oilers have a new arena and the players rave about Rogers Place as one of the best places for visiting rosters (plus Edmonton has always been known for having great ice). However, the Flames don’t provide the same experience. The Scotiabank Saddledome is one of the oldest in the league and it’s why the team is looking to build a new venue and are upgrading the old one in the meantime.
The road trip has teams going up against a star-studded Oilers team led by Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl, and Zach Hyman while the Flames, even in the middle of a retool, are also a tough out. That said, this trip was a particularly bad one in the 1980s. Teams had to face the team to beat in the decade with Wayne Gretzky, Mark Messier, and Paul Coffey leading the Oilers while the Flames were a perennial playoff team and won the Cup in 1989. The cold winters in Alberta give both home teams an advantage and make opposing teams dread it, especially when they have to play back-to-back games.
Florida (Panthers & Lightning)
The Florida road trip has turned into one of the toughest if not the toughest in recent seasons. The Tampa Bay Lightning have been a model franchise for a while and remain one of the best teams in the league, albeit not a juggernaut from a few seasons back. The Panthers meanwhile are the sleeping giant that woke up and look to be a dominant team for years to come.
The two teams have represented the Eastern Conference in the Stanley Cup Final in each of the past five seasons and it makes the Florida road trip one that was once a walk in the park a difficult one to get through. One night a team will have to face Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point, and Victor Hedman while the next night, they’ll face Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, and Sam Reinhart.
The Florida trip is a rough one for the teams on the opposite ends of the continent. The Canucks, Kraken, and Oilers already must travel a lot in a season and this stretch requires a few days to adjust to. It’s one of the reasons the Stanley Cup Final needed multiple days off between games. Yes, the Oilers and Panthers needed the rest but the travel alone made an extra day of rest a must.
New York (Devils, Islanders & Rangers)
When all three teams are playing well, this is without question the worst road trip for any team to face. Teams will often face the New Jersey Devils, New York Islanders, and New York Rangers in a four-day stretch and while the travel between games isn’t crazy, the matchups are. All three teams made the playoffs in 2022-23 and this season, the Devils and Rangers are regarded as two of the favorites in the Eastern Conference.
It’s one of the reasons the Oilers have historically played poorly against the Islanders, going 8-20-2 in road games against the other great team of the 1980s. The road trip has also been unforgiving for the Canucks, who have a 22-48-4 record in games at Madison Square Garden and Prudential Center.
Throw in the Philadelphia Flyers, who are often part of the road trip as a drive south down the I-95 and this trip becomes a gauntlet. On top of that, a lot of teams from the Western Conference will also face the other Metropolitan Division teams during the same trip. It crushes two birds with one stone as they get all the tough road games out of the way at once but they often set the team back in the standings as the losses can pile up.
Other Rough Road Trips
The Midwest and the Rocky Mountains are typically overlooked and regarded as flyover country. However, there are some tough trips in the area with each road game presenting a unique set of obstacles.
- The Minnesota Wild and Winnipeg Jets are close by and often grouped together for road teams. Both matchups are hard, especially in the winter when the snow and cold weather beat down on both cities.
- The Colorado Avalanche and Utah Hockey Club are now part of the same Rocky Mountain region road trip. Colorado always had the reputation of a tough place to play with Denver being the Mile High City, but Salt Lake City also has high altitude and is a tough place for players to acclimate for hockey.
- Las Vegas has no shortage of distractions and it gives the Vegas Golden Knights an advantage against teams that are staying in the city overnight or the day before the game. Then again, the Nashville Predators used that to their advantage last season when the canceled U2 concert lit a fire under the roster and helped them make the playoffs.
The road trips that require hours on the road or in the air are always the toughest. However, the ones that require teams to face great rosters as well are particularly rough. It used to be the Southern California trip was a brutal one and now the Florida trip is instead. Even the best teams stumble in these games and it makes the 82-game season a grind unlike any other.
