The curse of the SEGABABA haunts the next month of games.
This is the last three-day break of the regular season, so now is a good time to look at the rest of the schedule.
Only four separate back-to-backs in just over one month. Perfectly reasonable to pack this many games into the final weeks.
The travel is pretty easy, with the next road trip not really starting until after next weekend and moving from Long Island through the old Southeast Division. The Leafs also finish on the road with a Florida back-to-back and the big finish in Madison Square Garden instead of Montréal. Makes a nice change.
Only three of the remaining games are against teams ahead of the Leafs in the standings, and 10 of the games are against teams not currently in a playoff position. Five of those are in April.
There’s only one weird start time, and everything else is at 7 or 7:30, but don’t forget to get ready for 8 pm start times in the playoffs because… well… in 1990, there used to be TV news on at 6 pm for an hour and then shows on at 7 pm in syndication, you see, so broadcasters of big events or movies or mini-series used to put them on at 8 pm. And by starting the games later, the NHL can ensure that no one will want to take their families to mid-week games because they don’t get home until midnight, and the kids have school. You wouldn’t want kids to see the playoffs.