Islanders-Penguins playoffs: First round schedule and it’s a bit whacky

It’s taken time but the New York Islanders schedule for the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs is now out. We knew who the Islanders would play in the first round, but we’ve waited for three days since the Isles ended their regular season to know when.

The hold-up was likely due to Pennsylvania Governor Tom Wolf allowing sports venues to up their capacity from 15% to 50% effective May 17. Which is, just in time for Game 2 of the series.

Here’s the schedule with dates for all seven games and time for the first four. You’ll want to take note of the start times because they are all over the place.

New York Islanders schedule for opening round of playoffs released

• Game 1: May 16 @ 12 PM
• Game 2: May 18 @ 7:30 PM
• Game 3: May 20 @ 7 PM
• Game 4: May 22 @ 3 PM
• Game 5: May 24 (TBD)
• Game 6: May 26 (TBD)
• Game 7: May 28 (TBD)

Those start times are absolutely all over the place. I know the Islanders and Penguins aren’t the only ones to have such wild start times for the opening round. In fact, looking at the NHL schedule it seems that just about every team will have these crazy swings.

For example, the Avalanche/Golden Knights vs. Wild series has a seven-hour difference from game one to game two. Puck drop on the opening game for that series is at 3 PM ET while puck drop on Game 2 is at 10 PM ET.

So go to your calendars are write down these start times. You shouldn’t have to miss a game because you assumed the NHL would put playoff games at prime time. At least the earlier games are on the weekend. Remember the Toronto bubble with mid-week 12pm start times? That was wild, although, with everyone basically stuck at home then it certainly made sense to do it that way.