NHLPA Working With NHL ‘To Come Up With Viable Solutions’ For Season

The NHL is doing whatever it can to have the 2019-20 season resume following the COVID-19 outbreak, and the Players’ Association is hoping to help.

The league would prefer to play some regular-season games before beginning the postseason, according to The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun. There were roughly four weeks left in the NHL season before the league paused play over the coronavirus crisis.

NHLPA executive Mathieu Schneider hopes the league can somehow solve the problem.

“We’re still too early in this process to speculate and make concrete assertions, and we are trying to keep an open mind to all options,” Schneider said Thursday, per LeBrun. “We are now working together with the league to come up with viable solutions to address a wide array of issues we will be dealing with. The health and safety of our players, families and fans are No. 1 on our list in any scenario we would consider.”

Well, that’s certainly some welcome news.

What’s more, NHL commissioner Gary Bettman prefers “to play regular-season games before the playoffs if time allows,” per LeBrun. A shortened season reportedly would even be OK as long as a few more regular-season games take place.

For now, however, we’ll have to wait and see how things pan out.

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