NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the 2019-’20 regular season has officially concluded, the Stanley Cup Playoffs will consist of 24 teams with the New York Rangers getting a shot to play for the Stanley Cup.
The National Hockey League announced its Return to Play plan on Tuesday afternoon. The regular season has been officially declared completed and the league will jump right into the NHL Playoffs with a 24-team format to include the New York Rangers.
The Rangers were the hottest team in the league when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the NHL to pause the regular season on Mar. 12. The Blueshirts were two points away from a wild card spot with doubts if they would get an opportunity to complete the season or qualify for the postseason for the first time since 2017.
The tournament will begin with a 16-team, eight-series Qualifying Round, and a “Seeding Round Robin” among the top four teams in each conference to determine seeds for the first-round.
Bettman’s statement:
Commissioner Bettman was highlighted by the statement that the league is looking to award the Stanley Cup because the fans want to see a conclusion to the season.
“Let me assure you that the reason we are doing this because our fans have told us in overwhelming numbers that they want to complete the season if at all possible. And our players and our teams are clear that they want to play and bring the season to its rightful conclusion,” NHL.com’s Tom Gulitti reported.
The Qualifying Round and the Seeding Round robin will be held at two hub cities which have not been decided as of yet. One for the 12 Eastern Conference teams and one for the Western Conference teams. Locations being considered to include Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Edmonton, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Minneapolis, St. Paul, Pittsburgh, Toronto, and Vancouver.
The Rangers to play Carolina
The top four teams in the Eastern Conference are the Boston Bruins (44-14-12, 100 points), Tampa Bay Lightning (43-21-6, 92 points), Washington Capitals (41-20-8, 90 points) and Philadelphia Flyers (41-21-7, 89 points).
The Rangers will play the Carolina Hurricanes in a best of five series. The other play-in games will be Pittsburgh Penguins vs. the Montreal Canadiens, the New York Islanders vs. the Florida Panthers and the Toronto Maple Leafs vs. the Columbus Blue Jackets.
Following the conclusion of the Qualifying Rounds, the conference based playoffs will continue in the same hub cities. It remains unclear if the first-round series will set through seeding or bracketing.
Games in the qualifying round will be played with playoff overtime rules. The round-robin games will be played with regular-season overtime and shootout rules with ties in the standings broken by regular-season points percentage.
What’s next?
Phase 2 is expected to begin in early June. The will allow clubs to return to home facilities for voluntary, small-group, on and off the ice training.
Phase 3- It would be a formal training camp that is not expected to occur before July 1. This is good news for the Blueshirts as some of the star players are currently overseas. Henrik Lundqvist, Kaapo Kakko, and Mika Zibanejad are a few players who returned home when the NHL pause was put in place.
These players would most likely have to be placed in a 14-quarantine when they arrive back in New York. The phase three-date allows these players along with all players in the league not currently in the United States time to come back home.
Time is of no issue with the leagues understanding that fans would not be allowed in the stands for the foreseeable future.
Bettman intends to play a full 2020-’21 season and is willing to wait until December or January 2021 before beginning the new season.
David Quinn has plenty to do
David Quinn can check one thing off his bucket list. He has made the playoffs in his second year behind the bench. Now comes the hard part.
Let’s address the elephant in the room right now. Will it be Henrik Lundqvist or Igor Shesterkin to start in goal for the play-in series. Hank is 25-5 against Carolina since 2011. Rookie Shesterkin was named the number one starter in February and won 10 of his first 12 games to start his NHL career.
Chris Kreider has fully recovered from his injury suffered right after the trade deadline. Quinn now has to get him back to where he was prior to the injury where he scored 24 goals. A playoff driven Kreider could cause the Hurricanes plenty of trouble in a five-game series.
Pavel Buchnevich was involved in a car accident along with Igor Shesterkin and though he wasn’t injured physically, he was pretty shaken up and never found his game right up until the pause. The Kreider, Mika Zibanejad, Buchnevich line has been one of the best over the last few years, the club needs Buch at his best.
The younglings will now get their moment to shine in a national way. Adam Fox, Ryan Lindgren, Filip Chytil, Brett Howden, Alexandar Georgiev, and Kaako Kappo will get a taste of playoff hockey for the first time. The game changes dramatically in playoff time, cant wait to see what these guys will bring to the table when it matters most.
Artemi Panarin and Zibanejad together on the same team in the playoffs. Not much else can be said about that. The scoring and plain out fun watching these two play will be worth the price of admission (if fans were allowed).
On a down note, whenever the playoffs begin Brendan Lemieux will be watching from the press box. Lemieux had a hearing with the NHL Player Safety Department after a hit Colorado Avalanches’ Joonas Donskoi. The NHL didn’t announce the result of the hearing, but it’s expected he will sit a few games when the league resumes.
Rangers playoff hockey back. Well its almost back, but when the league resumes games, the Blueshirts will be playing hockey and that’s what matters most in Rangerstown.