The National Hockey League unveiled the format under which it intends to return to play from the suspension caused by the novel coronavirus, ending its regular season and expanding its playoffs to 24 teams, but it does not know when that postseason will begin.
The plans, which also included scheduling the league's draft lottery for June 26, were announced Tuesday by Commissioner Gary Bettman.
Instead of playing the regular-season games that had been scheduled to take place after the season was suspended March 12, 24 teams will compete in a modified and expanded postseason that will take place in two hub cities that have not been determined. No official dates were announced, though training camps will not be held earlier than the first half of July.
There will be one hub city for the Eastern Conference and one for the West. The sites under consideration are: Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis/St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Vancouver.
Teams will be allowed to have a maximum of 50 people in a hub city.
The format will see the top four teams in each conference (based on points percentage) playing one another for seeding, while the remaining 16 teams would play best-of-five series in a play-in round to advance to the first round. In the first and second rounds, the format and series length have yet to be determined. Conference finals and the Stanley Cup finals will be best-of-seven series.
In the Eastern Conference, the Washington Capitals will be in the round robin with the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning and Philadelphia Flyers. In the West, the St. Louis Blues, Colorado Avalanche, Vegas Golden Knights and Dallas Stars will be in the round robin. The qualifying round matchups in the East will be the Pittsburgh Penguins vs. the Montreal Canadiens, the Carolina Hurricanes vs. the New York Rangers, the New York Islanders vs. the Florida Panthers and the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets.
In the West, it will be the Edmonton Oilers vs. the Chicago Blackhawks, the Nashville Predators vs. the Arizona Coyotes, the Vancouver Canucks vs. the Minnesota Wild and the Calgary Flames vs. the Winnipeg Jets.
The plan was proposed by the NHL Board of Governors and approved Friday by the National Hockey League Players' Association.
Bettman also outlined tentative plans for players to return to training facilities, which the league calls Phase 2 of its return-to-play plan, and formal training camps (Phase 3). Aiming for early June, Phase 2 allows for small group, voluntary, and on- and off-ice training at team facilities. The workouts will be voluntary, and just six players will be allowed at the team facility at one time. No coaches are allowed during on-ice work.
Phase 3, the formal training camps, will not begin earlier than the first half of July, and only after guidance from medical and civil authorities.
The league also announced its plans for the June 26 draft lottery, which is complicated by the eight additional teams being included in the expanded playoffs. The first phase will consist of three drawings and be limited to the seven teams that did not qualify for the expanded postseason with odds determined by their point percentage during the regular season. The eight potential losing teams from the qualifying round will be represented in the first phase of the draft lottery as unassigned picks.
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May 27, 2020 at 10:58AM
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