Details for the upcoming NHL season are finalized and pucks are ready to drop

While the NHL and NHLPA still have to hold their votes to officially approve the details of the upcoming season, an agreement is in place between the two sides to get the next NHL season started (Note: Both sides voted to approve).

Through various social media sites and announcements, we’ve seen players from all over the world coming back to North America to either begin their mandatory quarantine (Canadian teams) or just to get back into their home cities (American teams).

With the usual suspects (Pierre LeBrun, Elliotte Friedman, Frank Seravalli, etc.) starting to confirm more and more details as we wait for the official vote of approval, there’s a ton of information to get to as the league goes through a major one-year-only overhaul.

DATES TO KNOW

• Training camp start: January 3 (December 31 for non-participants over the summer)
• Season start: January 13
• Trade deadline: April 12
• End of regular season: May 8
• Latest date for Stanley Cup Final: July 15
• Expansion draft: July 21
• 2021 NHL Draft: July 23-24
• Start of free agency: July 28

One of the NHL’s issues was to try to get things finished up before the Tokyo Olympics begin on July 23. NBC holds not only the NHL’s broadcast rights but also the rights for the Olympics so it was in everyone’s interests to fit it in.

Only the NHL Draft and open of free agency will end up running into any kind of scheduling ‘conflict’ and those are pretty niche events compared to, say, the Stanley Cup Finals.

Of note is also the expansion draft. At least one player from the eventual Stanley Cup champion will be a member of the Seattle Kraken less than a week later (assuming the Finals last to the 15th, of course).

With just two days between the expansion draft and NHL Draft, teams will have to be very well prepared for making a lot of their moves in a 48-hour window.

DIVISION ALIGNMENT

With this, Colorado moves from what has been a brutally difficult Central Division to, at least on paper, a much easier West Division.

All of Anaheim, Arizona, Los Angeles, San Jose, and Minnesota are thought to be in some form of transition or full-blown rebuild. That leaves the clear favorites as Colorado, St. Louis and Vegas.

The schedule hasn’t been released yet but because of the ongoing effects of COVID-19, the teams will play only intra-divisional games. The three divisions with eight teams will play each team in their division eight times while the North Division will play each of the teams either nine or ten times.

This all adds up to a regular season of 56 games.

PLAYOFF FORMAT

The division-only play continues into the postseason as the teams will stay within their division for the first two rounds.

The top four teams from each division make the playoffs with a traditional format of:

#1 vs. #4
#2 vs. #3

Winners play in the second round.

Where things diverge a bit here is because there are no conferences this year, the semifinals featuring the final four teams will be seeded based upon regular season points, at which point we’re back to:

#1 vs. #4
#2 vs. #3

Winners play in the Stanley Cup Finals, losers play “What if?”

ROSTER CHANGES

This is a pretty big one. The regular roster limit of a 23-man roster under the $81.5M salary cap limit still applies but teams must carry three goaltenders at all times.

Because of the uncertainty of COVID and what we’ve seen from other pro sports leagues, the NHL is creating a “taxi squad” for the upcoming season. That squad will be allowed to practice with the NHL club, attend events, and travel with the team while earning what their minors salary is scheduled to be (one-way deals earn the NHL salary, two-way deals the AHL salary).

Some details of the squad, per CapFriendly:

• Minimum of four players with a maximum of six.
• Waiver rules apply the same to taxi squad players as they would for players assigned to the minors
• One goalie is required for all teams with less than three active goalies on the roster
• The first day players can be loaned to the taxi squad is the last day of training camp
• While squad members can practice with the NHL club, they are not allowed additional practices with the AHL club
• If a squad member is deemed unfit to play (for whatever reason), a team can request they not count towards the six-player limit
• If a player is injured while on the squad, he is considered to have been injured in the minors

For training camp, the roster is limited to 36 skaters but unlimited goalies.

CONTRACT DETAILS

Players with immunocompromised family members will once again be given the option to opt-out of the season in favor of not taking the chance on contracting COVID and potentially bringing it home.

The deadlines for players to make that decision are December 24 for non-playoff teams and December 27 for playoff teams.

Should a player choose not to play, teams will have the option to “toll” their contract, or carry it over into next season. For example, if Brandon Saad chose not to play for the Avs this year, Colorado could toll his contract and instead of being a free agent over the summer, Saad would finish the final year of his contract for the Avs in the 2021-22 season.

There will be no prorating of salaries.

Players such as Bowen Byram who have the potential for ELC slides will no longer get a nine-game free trial but rather teams have to make their decisions in six games. Playing in a seventh game will trigger the start of the first year of the contract.

It doesn’t apply to Colorado this year but the unsigned RFAs must sign by February 11 to play this season.

REMAINING QUESTIONS

About the only things that haven’t been finalized or announced yet are what Canadian teams are going to do as their ability to play in their respective provinces is in jeopardy.

COVID restrictions in Canada have been significantly tougher than those in the United States, resulting in the North Division’s creation as Canada’s quarantine rules made it impossible for teams to fly in and out of the country for games.

Whether or not provinces approve the playing of games in the home arenas is still an ongoing question. For teams in the States, only San Jose currently faces the same level of uncertainty about where they will ultimately play their home games.

Other questions will be how teams and the league will handle COVID outbreaks. We saw all measures of dancing through the raindrops by the NFL, including the debacle in Denver that resulted in zero healthy quarterbacks for the Broncos. Competitive considerations were ignored completely in the name of making sure the league fulfilled its robust television inventory. How will the NHL handle these situations?

We’ve heard the NHL is willing to cancel games and move them to the end of the regular season and potentially use a week between the end of the season and the start of the postseason to fill with any make-up games that are required.

Until we get confirmation of that, however, it remains an open question and a pressing one at that as outbreaks in the United States are worse than ever. Leagues always say the right things about player health but we’ve seen the NFL completely ignore those considerations based on the teams and situation involved. What the NHL decides to do will be a key to getting through this upcoming season without disaster.