The NHL's grueling travel schedule has always been part of the sport's identity, but new data shows exactly where that travel actually costs teams games.
Per RotoWire analysis of every regular season game across all 32 current NHL franchises from 2015-16 through 2025-26, time zone changes alone barely affect win percentage.
The real damage shows up in one specific situation: back-to-back games that also involve a time zone change.
| Game Type | Win % |
|---|---|
| Back-to-back with time zone travel | 46.8% |
| All other games | 49.5% |
| No time zone change | 49.4% |
| Any time zone change | 49.1% |
| Eastward travel | 48.3% |
| Westward travel | 49.9% |
| Game Type | Win % | Meaningful? |
|---|---|---|
| Back-to-back with time zone travel | 46.8% | Yes |
| All other games | 49.5% | — |
| No time zone change | 49.4% | No |
| Any time zone change | 49.1% | No |
| Eastward travel | 48.3% | No |
| Westward travel | 49.9% | No |
The data behind the NHL travel fatigue study
The study pulled team-game records from ESPN spanning 11 full NHL regular seasons. Each game was classified three ways: whether the team had crossed a time zone since its previous game, whether that game fell on a back-to-back with no rest day in between, and which direction the team traveled, east or west.
That level of detail matters. Most conversations about NHL travel treat every road trip the same way, as if crossing the country always carries the same fatigue cost. The data says otherwise.
Back-to-back games are where time zone travel actually hurts
Teams playing a back-to-back game that also involves time zone travel win at a 46.8% clip. Every other type of game in the study checks in at 49.5%. That gap holds up as a real, statistically significant difference, not a coincidence buried in a decade of games.
The explanation lines up with what sports scientists have said for years about circadian rhythm disruption. A team that flies across time zones and takes the ice again the next night never gets a chance to reset. There's no recovery day for the body clock to catch up, and it shows on the scoreboard and at sportsbooks like BetMGM.
Raw time zone changes alone don't move the needle
Here's the surprising part. Simply crossing a time zone, without the added stress of a back-to-back, doesn't meaningfully change a team's win percentage. Teams with no time zone change win at 49.4%. Teams with any time zone change win at 49.1%. That's a difference of three-tenths of a percentage point, well within the range of normal variation.
Direction of travel doesn't tell a clean story either. Eastward travel produced a 48.3% win rate, while westward travel checked in at 49.9%. Neither gap is large enough to call a trend.
Full breakdown by game type
| Game type | Win % |
|---|---|
| Back-to-back with time zone travel | 46.8% |
| All other games | 49.5% |
| No time zone change | 49.4% |
| Any time zone change | 49.1% |
| Eastward travel | 48.3% |
| Westward travel | 49.9% |
What this means for NHL schedule-makers and bettors watching travel trends
For a league that just moved to an 84-game season, schedule difficulty is getting more scrutiny than ever. This data suggests the conversation around NHL travel and fatigue should focus less on how many time zones a team crosses in a season and more on how often that travel lines up with a zero-rest back-to-back.
Teams stacked with condensed road trips that force a time zone change the night before a game face a measurably tougher path, even if their season-long mileage total looks average. As next season's schedule gets finalized, tracking which teams draw the most back-to-back time zone changes will be a far more useful predictor of travel-related struggles than a simple mileage count.
The takeaway across 11 seasons and thousands of games is straightforward: it's not the travel itself that beats NHL teams. It's the lack of time to recover from it.
If you're hungry for more NHL data ahead of next season, check out RotoWire's ranking of the most hated NHL referees.
