NHL’s plan for return includes four hub cities
The NHL’s focus has returned squarely on its fourarena plan following a flirtation with the concept of resuming the 2019-20 season in teams’ home cities, sources have told The Post.
The notion of playing in each team’s home rink, albeit without fans in attendance, was considered in the aftermath of Wednesday’s virtual meeting of the joint NHL/NHLPA Return to Play Committee but has been abandoned.
The union, represented by five players in addition to union executives, raised numerous questions about the plan under which the athletes would be subject to quarantine in their hotels in assigned cen- tralized locations and thus separated from their families for up to three or four months.
It is believed up to a dozen NHL cities are under consideration to act as hubs if and when the NHL reopens. The league has extended its stay-at-home guideline for an indefinite period that we are told will not end before May 15. If conditions allow, it is expected the NHL would then initiate small-group informal workouts at teams’ respective training facilities at that time.
Those workouts would be followed by a formal training camp of up to three weeks if authorized by local governing bodies and health agencies. No decision has been reached on whether training camps would be held at local team facilities or at the centralized locations.
The NHL wants all teams to be able to operate under the same guidelines even as divergent guidelines and rules will be in place across the states and provinces.
Testing, though, remains a major universal stumbling block to a reopening in any form as the league and union grapple with matters including availability and procurement of test kits, cost, reliability and speed of results.
If the idea is to test every player every day — and every member of teams’ traveling parties plus league officials and attendant personnel necessary to stage the games — that would mean running a couple of thousand tests per day.
It is believed that an effort is underway for the four major sports leagues — including MLB, the NFL and the NBA — to coordinate responses on these testing issues. All of these leagues face a potential backlash if tests are scarce among the general public and across more essential industries while funneled to pro sports entities.
We are told that the league has yet to settle on whether to resume/ complete the regular season or whether to move directly to an expanded 24-team playoff format following perhaps a couple of exhibition games per club.
Teams have been pressing to complete the regular season in order to satisfy their local television commitments but another look is being taken at the wisdom of bringing clubs back to play out the schedule when they have no realistic chance of making the playoffs.
A proposed playoff plan has reportedly been floated under which the top six teams in each division — rather than the top 12 teams in each conference — would gain entry to the tournament, but that does not make the slightest bit of sense.
Under the divisional plan, the Rangers (79 points in 70 games, .564 percent) would be bumped by the Sabres (68 points in 69 games, .493) in the East while the Blackhawks (72 points in 70 games, .514) would be replaced by the Ducks (67 points in 71 games, .472) in the West.