Hockey is back, baby. Well, sorta kinda. It's a long and convoluted process that will take a little bit of explaining to do but luckily, Fresno Hockey Talk has you covered. What's important is that there's a glimmer of hope that the nightmare of 2020 is coming to a slow yet manageable end.
Today in a press conference that aired on NBCSN, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman laid out the plans for a 24 team playoff ending in the awarding of Lord Stanley's cup. The games, at least at this point, will be held with no fans and will be played in two select NHL arenas; one for the Eastern conference and one for the Western Conference. While there's still some details to be figured out, i'll highlight to main points of Commissioner Bettman's press conference along with some of my own thoughts. Here's the scoop:
The Regular Season
The regular season has been deemed complete by the Commissioner as the the remaining 12 or so games for each team will be cancelled.
My Thoughts: This blows, dude. It feels criminal to complain at all about this because we are finally getting some normalcy back in our lives but I really wish we could have finished the regular season. I mainly and selfishly just wanted to see Nathan Mackinnon reach 100 points but whatever just let me be myself. Also, any playoff that includes the Minnesota Wild is stupid because I hate the Wild and they're dumb.
But seriously, I believe we were witnessing an incredible season with a ton of interesting story lines to follow that all came to an abrupt end. It's like watching an awesome movie but every time you get close to the end your TV explodes and you never get to find out what happened. We had Leafs drama, the Rangers coming to life at the right time, Alex Ovechkin's chase for the great one's goal record, A possible Battle of Alberta playoff match-up (which could still happen I guess), and plenty of others. But at this point i'll take it, and i'm sure you will too.
The Layout
Each conference has four top teams that will play for first round seeding. These games will be played with regular season rules, meaning the 3v3 overtime rules. As I understand it, this is just to determine their seeding. The remaining eight teams, also known as the qualifying round teams, will play a best of 5 series with playoff rules (continuous OT) to determine who will advance to the first round.
It is still undecided whether the conference based playoffs will have a bracket format or be determined by seeding but what is decided is that the qualifying round winners will advance to play the top seeds in the first round. The NHL is still mulling over whether to make the first and second rounds a best of 5 or a best of 7 game series, but once again, the qualifying round is a confirmed best of 5 series. And lastly, the conference finals and Stanley Cup Finals will 100% be a best of 7 game series.
My Thoughts: If you had a stroke trying to untangle that mess don't sweat it; I did too. The fact of the matter is this isn't going to be easy to understand at first, but NHL is doing the best they can to give us the entertainment we all had hoped for. It's a lot different than what we are all used too but change is good sometimes. I'm not going to harp on this format too much because my therapist told me to stop complaining and I feel like listening this time. What I also really don't feel like seeing is people jawing about whoever wins this Stanley Cup should have an asterisk next to their championship. We have extremely healthy teams along with weeks of rest. There will be rust, but everybody is starting from the same spot. There's no unfair advantage here. As far as i'm concerned, This 'doesn't count' logic only applies to the Minnesota Wild because the self proclaimed state of hockey let their first franchise fail. I'm ranting now i'm sorry (not really).
The Teams
This is where things start to get juicy.
The top four teams in the Western Conference are the St. Louis Blues, the Colorado Avalanche, the Vegas Golden Knights, and the Dallas Stars. Here are the remaining eight qualifying teams and their respective match ups in the West.
My Thoughts: This is where I start to warm up to the idea of a 24 team playoff. These match ups with playoff implications are rules are going to be off the chain. I'm mostly intrigued by the Nashville/Arizona series. These are two teams who had a rough start but bounced back in a big way. In a normal playoff, these teams might have missed the cut, but who knows, either team can catch lighting in a bottle and rocket their way into the first round and possibly beyond.
The top four teams in the Eastern Conference are the Boston Bruins, the Tampa Bay Lightning, the Washington Capitals, and the Philadelphia Flyers. Here are the remaining eight qualifying teams and their respective match ups in the East.
My Thoughts: While the West certainly catches my eye, the East is where most of my attention is going. All of these match ups look insane. The Rangers might have been the hottest team from the outside looking in before the stoppage and now they have a real shot to prove themselves. The Florida Panthers were called 'Cup Contenders' before the year started and despite their awful regular season they have a real chance to prove themselves as an elite offensive powerhouse. The Hurricanes are probably going to have Dougie Hamilton back and before he went missing to injury, the 'Canes were wiping the floor with other teams. I wouldn't know where to go with these any of these series, but they're must see TV and I can't wait to get started.
Hub Cities
(Ignore Bettman's face lol)
Here we have ourselves a list of potential hub cities. The NHL will pick one city for each conference where they will play their games during the playoffs. The determination of each hub city will come within the next few weeks while the NHL continues to iron out more details.
My Thoughts: Every hub city has a team in the playoffs with the exception of Los Angeles. Will having a hub city in Las Vegas or Toronto help their respective teams? It's hard to say. Normally, I would say yes. But here's the thing: There won't be intense travel because all the teams and their staff will be in one spot, and most importantly, there are no fans in the stands. I'm sure the factor of staying in a hotel rather than at home will factor in a little bit, but i'm not sure how much that will help. I'll wait until I know for sure which cities will become hub cities before I really get into it but for right now, i'm not sold on it making a gigantic difference. Plus i'm sure the Leafs having to stay in Toronto might actually hurt them based on their fans' past behavior.
It's not what we expected when the season began back in October, but this is where we are. I'm just happy to have hockey back and something to talk about.
Notice the one thing I didn’t really talk about is the timetable. That’s because the timetable is really the only thing we don’t have worked out. This all depends on how the coronavirus situation plays out. Hopefully, best case scenario we watching playoff hockey in Late July.
I've already seen a lot of backlash but let's just take a moment to be thankful for our health and our beautiful sport coming back to us. Let's do that hockey. Jaime Benn is ready.
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