The NHL announced their “Return To Play” plan today in a teleconference with NHL commissioner Gary Bettman.

In it, the following plan was released:

-24 teams
-Regular season is over
-Each conference assigned to one of two hub cities
-Team staff limited to 50 personnel
-Comprehensive system of testing

Phase 2 begins early June
-Clubs return to home cities for limited workouts and small groups of on-ice work

Phase 3
-Formal training camp (no earlier than July 1)

Phase 4
-Clubs report to hub cities

DATES TBD

Hub cities undecided for now but are expected to be announced within three weeks or so
-Chicago
-Columbus
-Dallas
-Edmonton
-Las Vegas
-Los Angeles
-Minneapolis/St. Paul
-Pittsburgh
-Toronto
-Vancouver

Top 4 teams in each conference will play a round robin for first-round seeding (regular season OT)

Remaining 8 teams play bo5 series to advance to first round (playoff OT)

Conference-based playoffs

First & second rounds: Best-of-five OR best-of-seven
Conference Finals & Stanley Cup Finals: best-of-seven
-There is a chance the final two rounds could be in the cities of the participating teams depending on how things go

NHL Draft to take place after the conclusion of the playoffs

Draft Lottery in two phases: Pre-qualifying round, post-qualifying round (if necessary)

Phase 1 draw June 26 If a draw is won by a non-resuming club, it receives that pick No

Phase 2 if all three picks are awarded during Phase 1

Phase 2 between qualifying round and first round – All teams have 12.5% chance to win pick if it happens

Once top three picks are decided, rest of the order determined by points percentage

What matters to Colorado

The Avs can skip the entire convoluted draft lottery process because they finished high enough in the standings they won’t be involved in either lottery.

Colorado will take part in the round-robin against St. Louis, Dallas, and Vegas for seeding purposes. Any ties after the round-robin will be broken by points percentage from the regular-season standings.

The qualifying round will be as follows:

Where Colorado finishes in the round-robin will determine which team they play. The first round matchups will be:

SEED 1 vs. Winner of CGY-WPG
SEED 2 vs. Winner of VAN-MIN
SEED 3 vs. Winner of NSH-AZ
SEED 4 vs. Winner of EDM-CHI

While dates still have to be set for all of this, it’s going to be the best kind of hockey mayhem when things get going and for once August won’t be a hockey wasteland. It’s taken some time but we might just be arriving at the light at the end of the tunnel with today’s announcement.