The Toronto Marlies announced their 76-game schedule for the upcoming 2019-20 season. Welcome to a new decade!
The AHL has slowly altered their traditional schedule — one that included many three-in-three’s and harsh travel demands for teams in order to minimize costs — to one that allows time for better development of their most valuable commodity (prospects) and tries to avoid bigger ticket sports events like football in order to maximize ticket sales. The Marlies have seen a nice improvement to the number of days they get at home, but their road trips are still pretty brutal.
Let’s go through the list of changes, focusing on the Toronto Marlies, aka the only franchise that matters.