Photo of Canadiens and Nashville

Photo credit: NHL

Many experts have criticized this weekend’s schedule for the Montreal Canadiens. It’s extremely rare to see something like this, especially at the end of the season, but the National Hockey League made a truly strange decision.

The Canadiens are playing a second game in two nights today, which isn’t that unusual. However, Martin St-Louis’ squad is playing a second game in two nights, in two different conferences and two different time zones.

That’s something we almost never see, and it’s being heavily criticized today.

What were the people who put together the NHL schedule thinking?

An extremely complex schedule for the Montreal Canadiens

Martin St-Louis’ team left the Bell Centre around 11:00 p.m. last night, after their solid win over the Philadelphia Flyers, and then had to fly west for a game with a time difference.

I don’t see how the guys won’t be completely exhausted, but we’ll see how it goes.

“The Canadiens landed in Nashville around 2:15 a.m. Quebec time.
Will the guys have any legs tonight?”

– Maxime Truman

It’s a really strange schedule arrangement, to say the least.

Normally, when a team plays two games in two nights, it’s usually in cities that are fairly close together, or at the very least, cities in the same time zone.

The Canadiens didn’t mention it in their official release today, but it’s obviously assumed there won’t be a morning skate.

So we’ll have to wait for Martin St-Louis’ press conference to find out about any lineup changes, if there are any.