A board of governors call to dissect options for resuming the season is scheduled for Monday.
There
are several issues with the NHL resuming the season. There are more
than three weeks of regular-season games remaining on the schedule and
players were allowed to return to their home markets, including
international locations from which return flights to the United States
could be severely challenging without clearance from medical experts.
Commissioner
Gary Bettman and other NHL officials participated in a conference call
with U.S. President Donald Trump over the weekend, where optimism about
clearance for sports to resume in August was detailed. But NHL deputy
commissioner Bill Daly said the league would defer to medical
professionals when determining where and when it's safe to resume
hockey.The NHL asked teams to provide arena availability into the summer months when the regular season was paused.
ESPN reported on
Monday that the NHL's primary return-to-play plan focuses on some models
"that involve games being played in arenas without fans."
ESPN
NHL reporter Greg Wyshynski said Monday that the league is considering
"regional" playoff sites rather than the option of holding the playoffs
in a single city or facility. He reported games would be staggered
throughout the day from afternoon to late night, similar to the Olympics
hockey schedule.
That
approach has been mentioned in connection with the NBA returning for the
playoffs, with locations such as the Bahamas and Las Vegas reportedly
on the table.
Over the weekend, the governors and New York and Florida both
tamped down President Donald Trump's hope of sports resuming in August.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo said: "I would love to see sports back to
help with cabin fever. But this is not about hopes and dreams and
aspirations and what you would like to see."The NHL, which postponed play March 12, has several times pushed back its self-quarantine guideline — it's now April 15 — before players can even think about reporting to team facilities. The date is expected to be extended again.
Wherever and whenever the Stanely Cup is awarded, one thing will still hold true as far as Pittsburgh general manager Jim Rutherford is concerned.
"Whoever wins it, it is going to feel the same whenever they win it, on whatever day they win it, as it would winning it normally in the middle of June," Rutherford said.
The latest the Cup has ever been awarded is June 24, in 1995 and 2013, with both instances following lockout-shortened seasons. The pandemic, however, has no timetable.
That leads to questions over whether the NHL will have time to squeeze in any of the remaining 189 regular-season games to determine seedings, or skip directly to the playoffs based on the current standings, be it by based on total points or points percentages.
In the percentage scenario, the ninth-place New York Islanders would have the edge over the eighth-place Columbus Blue Jackets in the Eastern Conference. In the West, seventh-place Winnipeg would be the odd team out with Vancouver in.
Other possibilities include expanding the playoff format to take into account the uneven amount of games teams have played. Source
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tegFpm7uAs
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