Sleep doctor rips NHL for yet another brutal Vancouver Canucks schedule
It’s a tale as old as time.
The Vancouver Canucks aren’t strangers to being shafted by the NHL schedule makers. But, according to one well-known sports sleep doctor, this season is particularly rough.
Dr. Pat Byrne made a name for himself in the Canucks organization during the Mike Gillis era, when the former Vancouver GM brought him in to consult with the team back in 2008.
His work perhaps played a small part in Vancouver finding success during the Gillis era. Since then, Byrne has worked with franchises across the NFL, NBA and MLB.
Safe to say, he knows a thing or two about how travel schedules can mess with a professional sports team.
With that in mind, he had some pretty spicy things to say about the Canucks schedule in 2026-27.
“I’ve been doing this for 18- 20 years across all the different leagues, and this is one of the biggest messes I’ve ever seen,” Dr. Byrne said on Sekeres & Price.
Remember how much we heard the words compressed schedule from former Canucks head coach Adam Foote?
Well, prepare to hear it again next season.
“It’s very tricky,” Dr. Byrne said. “A lot of it has to do with the compressed schedule. A lot of
it has to do with the time change in British Columbia.”
The time change in particular is something new the Canucks will have to adjust to.
“That messes up the circadian rhythms of the players,” he said. “I think we have like nine home games that start at 8 p.m., right? And so you’re getting late starts. It means you go to bed even later.
However, Dr. Byrne’s biggest gripe with the schedule wasn’t necessarily the late home starts. It’s another slew of brutal road trips.
The Canucks have a tough one right off the bat in October, playing six games in 10 nights over on the East Coast. This trip starts down in Carolina, then the Canucks will travel up to New York before travelling back down to end the roadie in Florida.
“That’s a lot of games,” Dr. Byrne said. “That’s a long time to be away. My experience is
that takes a lot of discipline for the players to deal with that.”
But the worst road trip takes place in January. The Canucks play seven games in 12 nights, changing time zones four different times within the same trip.
- Jan. 18 @ Colorado Avalanche, 1 p.m. PDT
- Jan. 20 @ Nashville Predators, 12 p.m. PDT
- Jan. 22 @ Chicago Blackhawks, 6 p.m. PDT
- Jan 23. @ Pittsburgh Penguins, 5 p.m. PDT
- Jan. 26 @ Minnesota Wild, 6 p.m. PDT
- Jan. 28 @ Dallas Stars, 6 p.m. PDT
- Jan. 30 @ St. Louis Blues, 1:30 p.m. PDT
“Seven games in a very short period of time…back-to-back games, multiple time zone crossings. It’s going to be their toughest challenge.”
Vancouver also has a road trip with four games in seven nights out east in late November/early December. They have another condensed road trip in March out east, featuring five games in nine nights.
Why Canucks went away from sleep science
Another fascinating part of Dr. Byrne’s interview with Matt Sekeres and Blake Price was him revealing the reason why he left the Canucks.
He joined the Canucks back in 2008, and was still with the team after Gillis was fired in 2014.
However, Dr. Byrne soon followed Gillis out the door.
Trevor Linden and Jim Benning weren’t fans of sleep science, according to Dr. Byrne. (Bob Frid/Imagn Images)
“Well, I was there when Trevor [Linden] came in, and I mean, I just wanted to like the guy,” Dr. Byrne said.
“Him and Jim Benning pretty much tossed out…we had one of, literally, the best systems in professional sports around sleep and travel, and they just went ‘this is just science junk.’ They threw it all away.”
The Canucks had one strong season at the very beginning of Linden and Benning’s tenure, before missing the playoffs in four consecutive seasons.
“One of the things I’ve learned the hard way across all sports leagues is that professional sports teams have very little institutional memory. So, you bring in a new president, you bring in a new general manager, and they look around going, ‘Oh, I don’t want to do what the other guy did because he got fired.'”
“That sleep [science] was just too complicated for the new guys.”