Philly Sports Jabronis
The Philadelphia Flyers, in conjunction with the National Hockey League, today unveiled their schedule for the 2014-15 season. The Flyers will open their 48th NHL season on Wednesday, October 8 at Boston, with the home opener coming the next night on Thursday, October 9 vs. New Jersey. The Flyers will close the season at home when they host the Ottawa Senators on Saturday, April 11, 2015.
The NHL heads into its second season under the current alignment of four divisions –two each in the Eastern and Western Conference. The two Eastern Conference divisions contain eight teams each and the two in the Western Conference each have seven teams.
Once again this year, the Flyers will play all of their divisional opponents at least four times – twice at home and twice on the road. The schedule format includes an additional game against two of their in-division counterparts for a total of five. This year, the Flyers’ five-game opponents are Carolina and Columbus. They will visit the Hurricanes a total of three times and will host the Blue Jackets three times. The Flyers will play a total of 30 games against opponents in their division.
The Flyers will play the eight Atlantic Division teams three times each for a total of 24 games against that division. The Flyers will play two home games and one road game against Detroit, Florida, Ottawa and Tampa Bay. They will play two road games and one home game against Boston, Buffalo, Montreal and Toronto. The breakdown of home and road games against each Atlantic Division team is the reverse of what it was in the 2013-14 season.
The Flyers will again play a home-and-home series with every Western Conference team, assuring that fans will have the opportunity to see every NHL club at the Wells Fargo Center at least once this season. The Flyers will play a total of 28 games against the Western Conference, which is split into the Central Division and the Pacific Division.
The Flyers will enjoy a more balanced schedule this year than they have in recent years, with between 10 and 14 games each month. Their heaviest month of travel comes in December, when they will play 10 of 14 games on the road, and their busiest month at home comes in January when they play nine of 14 at the Wells Fargo Center.
The early part of the season includes a visit from the 2014 Stanley Cup champion Los Angeles Kings on October 28 and the annual Black Friday game, which takes place on November 28 vs. the New York Rangers at 1:00.
The Flyers will visit Dallas and Chicago as part of a three-game road trip in October; after that, they won’t play more than two games in a row on the road or leave the Eastern time zone until early December. The first extended road trip of the season comes from Nov. 29 – December 9. After a trip to Madison Square Garden on the 29th, the Flyers will head to California to visit San Jose, Anaheim and Los Angeles before hitting Columbus on the way home.
A four-game homestand follows before the Flyers depart for their annual holiday season road trip, which comes while Disney on Ice Presents Frozen takes over the Wells Fargo Center December 25 through January 4. This year’s journey is an eight-game trip split into two halves, with three games before Christmas and five games after. Overall, the stretch runs from Dec. 20 in Toronto to Jan. 3 at New Jersey, with the club returning home to host Ottawa on Jan. 6.
The second half of the season includes a season-high five-game homestand from Jan. 20 – Feb. 5, which starts off with the first of two visits on the season from Pittsburgh. The season also concludes with a four-game homestand that begins with Pittsburgh’s second visit, on April 5. After they return from their holiday trip on Jan. 3, the Flyers only have to deal with two trips of more than two games – a four-game stretch from Feb. 8-15 that’s entirely within the Eastern time zone, and another four-game trip from March 15-21.
Also on the schedule is the 38th annual Flyers Wives Carnival, which will take place on Sunday, March 1 at the Wells Fargo Center.
National and local TV broadcast information, as well as the local radio broadcast schedule, will all be released later this summer.
For access to the full schedule, click here.
