The NHL owners and NHLPA have agreed to another return to play for what will be the 2020-21 season. The season will begin on 13 January 2021. With training camps expected to begin on the 28th of Dcemeber for teams that did not participate in the playoffs. While the rest of the league will begin camps on the 1st of January.
What Do the Divisions Look Like?
With the travel restrictions in Canada right now the league is going to be completely re-aligned based on location. that means a Canadian, Eastern, Central, and Western divsions. Each of which will have 8 except the Canadian division which will have 7 due to the number of teams in the league. According to Pierre LeBrun here is what the divisions will look like.
| Eastern | Central | Western | Canadian |
| Boston | Carolina | Anahiem | Calgary |
| Buffalo | Columbus | Arizona | Edmonton |
| New Jersey | Chicago | Colorodo | Montreal |
| New York Islanders | Detroit | Dallas | Ottowa |
| New York Rangers | Florida | Los Angelas | Toronto |
| Philadelphia | Minnasota | San Jose | Vancouver |
| Pitsburgh | Nashville | ST Louis | Winnipeg |
| Washington DC | Tampa Bay | Las Vegas |
What Does This Mean For The Flyers?
This means on paper The Flyers are in the most competitive division and that this season will be the most dificult to play in. With that being said in a 56 game schedule they can ill afford to have a slow start or any kind of cold streak for an extended period of time during any point in the season in order to make the playoffs. The playoff format has not been decided yet nor has the actual schedule. But what makes sense to me for all of this would be to try and stick to mini bubble type of deal where all teams in one division will fly to one of the divisions cities and play 8 games by each teams over the course of 14 days or so. every team will play eachother and then get a week at home followed by another 14 day trip to a different city and play another 8 games. that would be the first quater of the season all done in about a month period so at that point it would be about mid febuary. hopefully by then we have the vaccine out and fans can maybe attend games in an arena at 25% capacity. At that point the rest of the USA teams would be able to maybe mix and match some of the teams from divisions in hub cities and to create some diversity. While the Canadian teams would probably still require a period of ROM throughout the entirety of the season they would have to play each other all year. About half way through the season to 3/4ths of the year in about April hopefully the arenas would be able to open up and allow 50% capacity. Then by play off time in mid May we could hopefully allow 75% of capacity back into arenas.
What Would the Playoff Format Be?
I would imagine it would be clear cut the best 4 teams from each division would be seeded 1 through 4 and play in a division tournament. 1 plays 4 in a best of 7 and 2 plays 3 in a best of 7 game series. From there you would have the division winners play for the conference and they would be re seeded based on points and it would be 1-4 again and having the same rules that applied in the division round apply to the conference round. Then the Stanley Cup, I would imagine the division rounds would be played in hub cities that would be in neutral cities that aren’t in the playoffs. Same goes for the conference finals and the Stanley cup with the Stanley Cup being played somewhere in the middle between the two teams.
Whatever is decided on how the season will play out I guarantee it will be fun to watch and I cannot wait to see what happens this year.
Broad Down 