The NHL playoffs are right around the corner, and negotiations with the Canadian government still could be ongoing as teams fight for the Stanley Cup.
You must quarantine for 14 days upon arrival into Canada, but it was reduced to seven for NHL players who were traded from their team to one in the North Division.
The Stanley Cup playoffs are slated to begin in mid-May, and with the division realignments one team from Canada will make up the final four. That means teams will need to travel to and from Canada at some point during the playoff run.
According to ESPN, talks may go well into June regarding what the teams will need to do.
“It’s going to be down to the wire,” a source with knowledge told ESPN’s Greg Wyshynski.
Wyshynski also noted the league does not plan to do bubble cities at the moment like it did last year for its Stanley Cup run, and there are two “scenarios being discussed.”
From Wyshynski:
There are two scenarios being discussed regarding the North Division champion. The first is that negotiations with the Canadian government — led by NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly — result in the country giving teams a special dispensation to travel back and forth across the border for their playoff series. The second is that the Canadian government does not allow that dispensation, and the North Division champion would be relocated to a U.S. city for the semifinal round and, should it advance, the Stanley Cup Final.
While there still is some time to figure out what to do, there isn’t much of it as teams needs to prepare for where they’re going when the times comes.
