POTENTIAL ROADBLOCKS AS B’s NEAR RESTART
The National Hockey League entered Phase 2 in its Return To Play plan on Monday, allowing players to return to their team’s facility for voluntary small group, noncontact workouts.
These are baby steps, to be sure, and actual competitive hockey games taking place are difficult to imagine, not just because of the coronavirus restrictions but also against the backdrop of the worst civil unrest this country has seen in over
50 years.
But let’s try to imagine them.
Last week, the
NHL announced that should the league make it through Phase 2 and Phase 3 (training camps) without any major setbacks, then it will be on to Phase 4, the 24-team tournament with reseeding as opposed to brackets. The Bruins will be playing in a round robin with the other three top teams in the Eastern Conference – Tampa Bay, Washington and Philadelphia – to determine the top four seeds while teams seeded fifth through 12th will fight for their lives in play-in series.
The round robin in which the B’s will be playing is not do-or-die like a real playoff series, but it will determine how easy – or not – their path to the Stanley Cup will be.
The B’s have already lost some advantages that they were well on their way to earning. Home ice is gone. That particular “advantage” can seem like more of a burden at some junctures of the playoffs, but it’s something most coaches and players would still rather have than not. Also, the advantage that the Jennings Trophy-winning goaltending tandem of Tuukka Rask and Jaroslav Halak gave the B’s last year will not matter. While the 1A-1B system allowed Rask to enter the playoffs fresh last year – and it showed – now every team, even ones that had to rely primarily on one goalie, will have a well-rested netminder. And while the B’s were in generally good health with 12 games left in the regular season, other teams who had key missing pieces will now be in better shape.
Still, provided the next month-plus produces no health- or labor-related setbacks, the B’s will get the chance to play for the Cup, and that’s all that really matters. If they are in fact the best team, as they were in the longforgotten regular season, then they should be able to beat anybody.
But some first round draws would be more difficult than others. Here are four teams the B’s would do well to avoid once the round of 16 begins.