Gary Bettman caught giving preferential treatment to metro team

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Tom Banks
July 21, 2024  (3:21 PM)

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Photo credit: The Los Angeles Times

The travel schedule in the NHL is hard enough over 82 games as it is, but now Commissioner Gary Bettman has clearly given preferential treatment next year.

Given the size of North America, there's nothing to help teams across the NHL logging immense miles during the regular season, but now, Commissioner Gary Bettman has made his preferences clear with a clear discrepancy in distance travelled during the 2024/25 season.

According to data compiled on social media, the Pittsburgh Penguins have by far the least amount of miles travelled, compiling 31,700, which is over 25,000 less than the team with the most miles, the Dallas Stars. There are some reasons for a difference, with the Penguins division rivals all within a few hours of them, while Dallas have to travel to Nashville, Winnipeg, Minnesota, Colorado, St. Louis, now Utah and Chicago in the division, but this is a bit much.

On top of that, the 10 teams with the least amount of travel in 2024/25 come from the Eastern Conference, while three of the top four teams will all top 50,000 miles on the year. One positive for those teams is that Edmonton (No. 4) and Florida (No. 2) both appeared in the Stanley Cup Finals a year ago despite travelling a significant distance, so we will now wait and see how those playoffs plus this distance hurts them this year.

Ultimately, it's hard to keep things incredibly tight, with teams out West being so far from rival teams, but given how much of a discrepancy there is, it's hard to not point the finger at Commissioner Gary Bettman.

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JUILLET 21   |   393 ANSWERS Gary Bettman caught giving preferential treatment to metro team Is there a way for the NHL to make travel more even across the league?
Yes	277	70.5 %
No	116	29.5 %
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