The NHL has started thinking about options for the 2020/21 season and according to NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, the season could be delayed for late December or pushed back to January.
While speaking at his annual state of the league address ahead of the Stanley Cup Finals, Bettman talked about the uncertainty of the season due to the COVID-19 pandemic and how they originally planned to kick it off on December 1.
“Dec. 1 has always been a notional date,” said Bettman. “I will not be surprised if it slips into later December, could slip into January. But there’s no point right now in making any definitive comments on our plans because there’s still too much we don’t know.”
In his address, Bettman also added that the league is hopeful about staging a full 82-game season, with the best of seven series in the playoffs. He also spoke about technicalities like the fans’ presence on the stands. “It’s conceivable that we start without fans, that we move to socially distant fans at some point, and by some point in time maybe our buildings are open,” he added.
As a result of the pandemic, the NHL decided to cut the 2019/20 regular season short and chose to stage a three-game series play-in tournament for the teams that were playoff contenders. The later stages of the Stanley Cup playoffs continued as usual and it was a seven-game series.
