​This afternoon, teams around the National Hockey League released their 2026-27 schedules in unison. The New Jersey Devils released a mini-production starring Ken Daneyko and Rachel Herzog (which was actually pretty good), but it was a little short on the details. With a short glimpse, you might only see that the Devils have an oddly imbalanced schedule that features all games against the Rangers before New Year’s and all games against the Hurricanes after the All-Star Break. But looking deeper into the press release and the calendar, more significant issues arise. Let’s start with the most basic one from the press release. How much of a problem will back-to-backs be? They will be somewhat annoying at times, but not awful.Overall, New Jersey is scheduled for 13 back-to-back sets in 2026-27, down from 15 last season. The team’s breakdown for back-to-back sets includes two home/home, two home/away, four away/home and five away/away.I have a slight problem with this, mostly on the road bias of back-to-backs. 11 of the 13 sets feature a road game, which doesn’t seem great. But it’s only a slight problem that is made better by the fact that the Devils have a positive rest bias in their schedule. Per Micah McCurdy of HockeyViz, the Devils have nine instances of playing (expectedly) tired teams and only seven instances of playing rested teams while tired. In all, it’s more middle-of-the-road than the Devils usually get from the NHL. Last season, they had the fifth-toughest rest imbalance.If you take a look at the schedule itself, more problems become apparent, but these are problems that plague the fan far more than the player. The Devils’ press release notes that the “home schedule includes 15 weekend dates with two Friday games, nine Saturday contests and four games slated on Sundays.” However, that is in comparison to fifteen Saturday road games, three Friday road games, and four Sunday road games. That’s 15 weekend home games to 21 on the road.AdvertisementAdvertisementAdvertisementAs for matinees, the Devils’ release notes that seven of those 15 home weekend games are prior to 5:00 PM. Those are:Saturday, Oct. 10 vs. Vancouver (3:30)Saturday, Oct. 24 vs. Los Angeles (3:30)Friday, Nov. 27 vs. Calgary (1:00)Saturday, Dec. 19 vs. Boston (12:00)Saturday, Jan. 9 vs. Chicago (12:00)Saturday, Feb. 20 vs. Buffalo (3:00)Sunday, Apr. 4 vs. Florida (4:30)The Devils also have no games scheduled at 5:00, with their earliest non-matinee game being the home finale on April 10 at 6:00 versus Pittsburgh. In comparison, the Devils have the following road matinees (Eastern time listed):Saturday, Oct. 17 at Washington (1:00)Saturday, Dec. 5 at Pittsburgh (3:00)Saturday, Dec. 12 at Boston (1:00)Friday, Jan. 1 at Anaheim (4:00)Saturday, Jan. 30 at Calgary (3:30)Sunday, Jan. 31 at Seattle (4:00)Sunday, Feb. 21 at Chicago (3:30)Sunday, Feb. 28 at Minnesota (3:30)The Devils also play the Carolina Hurricanes at 5:00 on Saturday, April 3. So, that’s ni