ny rangers return to play

Despite the owners (or in this case, a small subset of owners) claiming liquidity issues and delaying the process, the NHL owners and NHLPA have agreed to move forward with no changes. This means the current MOU and CBA, signed this summer, remains in place. It also means a targeted January 13 start date, and a 56-game NHL season.

With that small subset of owners silenced for now, the NHL can move forward with planning the logistics. This is the tough one, because if January 13 as the start date doesn’t leave much time for things to get moving. Teams need to get their players to camp, make roster decisions, and prepare for full games with no preseason.

Logistical Complications

The big concern is the season end date. The Olympics will be NBC’s priority starting in mid July, so the NHL needs to wrap things up by then. With the Olympics starting on July 23, a safe bet is the NHL would need to finish a week before (July 16). That’s 26 weeks for a regular season and playoffs.

The assumption is the league will need 8 weeks for the playoffs, leaving 18 weeks for the regular season. To be fair, that’s an average of only three games per week for 56. Only two weeks would need four games. Given the concern about COVID infections, quarantines, and the need for player replacements, that would work pretty well.

Questions Still To be Answered

There is still a lot of work to do. Given how the August-September bubble worked, the league gets the benefit of the doubt in execution. But there are still a lot of questions to be answered.

  • Will there be mini bubbles?
  • How will the league handle positive tests and moving games around? What is the threshold for forfeiting?
  • Will teams be allowed to carry more than 23 players? What is the cap impact?
  • What will be the timeframe between positive test and allowing a player back?
  • Will there be rules regarding social lives outside of the arena? Is that even enforceable?
  • Since there is no bubble, are masks going to be required for the coaches and trainers?

These are just some of the questions that will need to be answered before the NHL can go forward with it’s January 13 start date. But it seems these are small potatoes compared to the financial hurdle cleared.

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