The NHL playoffs were less than a month away when the league paused its season March 12 due to coronavirus concerns. And now cities are reaching out to offer venues as neutral sites.
ESPN’s Emily Kaplan on Friday reported NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly revealed people are working on a “comprehensive laundry list” of what would be needed from the cities offering the venues.
“We do have people putting together the comprehensive laundry list of what we would need from facilities and evaluating some facilities on some level,” he said. “But I can’t tell you we’ve even finished creating a list (of potential sites), much less narrowed it down.”
Both New Hampshire and North Dakota were rumored as locations for games should the season resume, but nothing had been confirmed.
There certainly would be a lot to iron out if the NHL is able to resume play, and Daly noted he doesn’t have a set date to make a decision on the remaining regular season games.
“We’re just starting to get our minds around that,” Daly said, via Kaplan. “It’s kind of a combination of things, like when we can start a regular season (in 2020-21) and how much time we need for an offseason, and then what does the playoff format look like, in terms of knowing what you need to have a regular season.”
Daly also noted a “one-and-done” type of playoff format would not be something the NHL “would ever go to.”
There are a lot of questions to answer regarding the 189 regular season games that suddenly were halted, how the league will handle teams that were on the cusp of clinching a playoff spot as well as a plan to keep the players, arena staff and officials safe and healthy.
For what it’s worth, commissioner Gary Bettman is confident a Stanley Cup champion will be crowned for the 2019-20 season.
