Mark your calendars - 2008-09 schedule released

The good people in the NHL front office have finally graced us with the 2008-2009 NHL schedule. The major changes for this year will be that all teams play each other at least once, meaning that fans on the West coast will get a chance to see my Flyers in their barn. Plus, instead of playing each team in the division eight times, it's been pared down to six meetings. Some may think that this will hurt divisional rivalries, but I don't.

I'm not going to post the entire schedule (I do have things to do today), but I will point out some of the highlights as I see them:

Oct. 11 vs. New York Rangers - Frankly I would have liked to see us open against Pittsburgh.
Oct. 14 @ Pittsburgh - I put the over/under on Flyer penalty minutes at 60 for this game.
Dec. 26 - Jan. 6 - The Flyers' annual New Year's road trip. My buddy out in LA will be pleased to get two back-to-back games against Anaheim and the Kings.
Jan. 8 vs. Minnesota - This game will be fight-filled, believe me.
Mar. 17 @ Detroit - Talk about insult to injury. The Toronto Maple Leafs get to watch the Wings raise the Cup banner on opening night.
Any game after March 1 - This is the playoff push. As long as they can avoid another ten-game slump like last season, we should be fine.

I like this schedule format. It lessens the monotony of playing the Devils and Islanders sixteen times a year and we get teams like San Jose and Colorado coming to town (the latter made more interesting if Peter Forsberg is healthy). I don't see this team taking any step backwards from last year, so I'm thinking the top four teams in the East stay the same (Pittsburgh, Montreal, Philly, Washington) with the Devils, Rangers, Bruins, and Lightning rounding out the rest. At least I hope they don't regress. Otherwise, those last Phantom games at the Spectrum will start to look pretty good.