NHL proposing division realignment
The National Hockey League did a fantastic job in concluding the 2019-20 campaign after the COVID-19 pandemic hit and shut down the league for months. They started and finished the playoffs from inside bubbles in Edmonton and Toronto, keeping players and coaches safe throughout the course of the postseason.
However, planning for the 2020-21 season is proving to be much more complicated and difficult.
Unlike in the summer when the playoffs took place, the league is not going to be able to house every team and every player inside traditional bubbles in two cities again. Players, coaches and team management cannot be expected to spend several months away from their families while trying to play out an entire season.
As a result, the league has looked at various ways it can play out the upcoming season and has announced a plan in order to do so. The NHL is looking to realign divisions in order to restrict travel and contact between teams. This would also help solve the issue of cross-border travel.
Canadian teams in other leagues have been forced to temporarily re-locate to the United States to play their games as the Canadian-American boarder remains closed. The Toronto Blue Jays played their games in Buffalo in 2020 while the Toronto Raptors will be kicking off the upcoming campaign in Tampa Bay, Florida.
However, it is a more complicated scenario for the NHL that has seven Canadian teams playing in it, not just one. According to the league’s outlined plans, there will be an all-Canadian division created in order to avoid any cross-border travel. This also means that players and coaches on Canadian clubs wouldn’t have to spend months away from their families in another city.
“There are a lot of things we have to do to return to play. For us to return to play, we’re not going to play 82 games, obviously, and we have travel issues because of the restrictions at the border between Canada and the U.S. You can’t go back and forth, so we’re actually going to have to realign,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman told NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti, via Sportsnet.
“If everything stays the way it is, we’re probably going to have to have a Canadian division and realign in the US, and we’re trying to focus on dealing with all of those challenges.”
The current division realignment proposal from the league looks like this, with a total of four separate divisions:
Boston-Buffalo-New Jersey-NY Islanders-NY Rangers-Philadelphia-Pittsburgh-Washington
Carolina-Chicago-Columbus-Detroit-Florida-Minnesota-Nashville-Tampa Bay
Anaheim-Arizona-Colorado-Dallas-Los Angeles-Las Vegas-San Jose-St. Louis
Ottawa-Montreal-Toronto-Winnipeg-Edmonton-Calgary-Vancouver
There is still some debate though in regards to where the Minnesota Wild and St. Louis Blues would play.
According to Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman, the league is hoping to be able to play a 56-game regular season with the first game taking place on January 13th. Players would be expected to report to training camp for January 3rd.
It remains to be seen whether the league will actually be able to stick to the timelines though, as no dates have officially been announced yet and time is quickly running out.
