By: Adamo Marinelli
June 4th, 2020
It's official! The NHL is back! The Stanley Cup will be awarded in 2020! The NHL and NHLPA have agreed on a 24 team playoff format that will happen whenever it is safe to get back on the ice.
According to a tweet from Pierre LeBrun, training camps for the NHL will not resume before July 10th. There will be a lot of testing before training camps start, there will be a lot of testing during the training camps and the NHL would need to find a few key hub cities for multiple teams to have training camps in to reduce travel. The NHL is in no rush to name the hub cities as they want to wait until the last possible moment to see how the pandemic shifts in terms of where the hotspots are, so they can avoid those hotspots. The NHL hopes to conduct the 24 team playoffs in 2 hub cities. Vegas is believed to be a front runner, with ample hotel space for players and families. North of the border, Vancouver Edmonton, and Toronto are putting forth their bids to host, but federal and provincial quarantine restrictions hurt their chances to host. So, the timeline indicates that the NHL appears to be looking to resume games in late July or early August. The NHL and NHLPA remain hopeful that the movement into phase 2 of their plan to restart play can begin with players returning to team facilities to train in small groups sometime during the week of June 1st.
The 24 team playoffs will work as follows. The top 12 teams from each conference, based on points percentage - which is how many wins each team got in a certain number of games played, to account for the games in hand that some teams have over others - will make the playoffs. The top 4 teams in each conference, regardless of what division they are in will get a bye to the next round, a 16 team playoff bracket. The 5th-12th seeds in each conference will battle it out in a mini best of 5 series to advance to the round of 16. The 5th seed will play the 12th, the 6th will play the 11th, the 7th will play the 10th and the 8th will play the 9th. In the round of 16, the winner of the 5th vs 12th seed matchup plays the 4th seed, the winner of the 6th vs 11th seed matchup plays the 3rd seed, the winner of the 7th vs 10th seed plays the 2nd seed and the winner of the 8th vs 9th seed plays the 1 seed. It is uncertain if the round of 16 and the rounds following will be best of 5 series or best of 7 series.
There have been complaints from GMs of the high seed teams, saying the round of 16 playoffs should be reseeded. Based on the way the tournament is scheduled, there will be no chance the best seed gets to play the worst seed. But some GMs feel if the 12th seed Montreal Canadiens beat the 5th seed Pittsburgh Penguins, that Boston as the 1st seed should get to play Montreal, instead of playing the winner of the 8th seed Toronto Maple Leafs or the 9th seed Columbus Blue Jackets. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman’s answer to these complaints was that the 8th seed Blue Jackets swept the 1st seed Tampa Bay Lightning, one of the best regular-season teams in the salary cap era, in the first round of the playoffs. Another complaint from top tier teams is that franchises like Montreal and Chicago, who would have had no chance at the playoffs if the regular season had gone on uninterrupted, would have a shot in a five-game series to move on to the round of 16. Bettman in response concluded: “No format, will leave every player or team happy.” Finally, some players are still stuck in Europe, they might not make it back in time to play, which may cause a slight disadvantage to some teams and general managers have silently complained about this as well. Bettman said that hopefully by the time the games start, the travel restrictions will be lighter and players can return back to their teams.
Finally, with the regular season officially over, it cuts short one of the greatest Maurice Richard Trophy races we’ve seen in a long while. David Pastrnak and Alex Ovechkin are tied for the league lead with 48 goals and Auston Matthews was one goal behind them with 47 on the year. If the remainder of the NHL season was to be played, it would be interesting to watch who would come out on top. Also, Leon Draisaital currently holds the Art Ross trophy with 110 points, would he have held on if the regular season was finished as planned? I’m sure we all wanted to see the conclusion of these fantastic scoring races, but the end of the regular season means playoff hockey is back, we’d all sign up for that right about now.
Furthermore, for teams who aren’t qualifying for the 24 team playoffs, it will be about 9 or 10 months until they hit the ice again (reports suggest the 2020-21 season will start in December 2020), so how will their play be affected next year after the long pause?
I can’t wait until the NHL playoffs start. It will be very exciting considering it’s been 3 months since NHL hockey has been played. And with an expanded playoffs, it means more games and so much more exciting action! It’s going to be fun. I will make my predictions shortly, in another article.
No comments:
Post a Comment