NHL Around the NHL XXVII - 2020-21 Off-Season begins

[SanDogBrewin]

 

[BruinsBtn]

I highly doubt Henrik Lundqvist is counting pennies.

 

[Chevalier du Clavier]

The Jets re-acquire Paul Stastny from Vegas for Carl Dahlstrom and a 4th round pick.

 

[Chevalier du Clavier]

 

[Bruinaura]

Assume other teams will be doing something like this as well?

 

[phillytennis]

The Habs just signed Toffoli for 4 years, $17 million ($4.25 million avg).

 

[Bruinaura]

Holy cow

 

[BruinDust]

Holy cow

I'm not so sure Bogosian was smart to reveal this considering he is a current Leaf.

I interpret that as Dubas basically realized after the David Ayres incident that his 2019-20 Leaf team was going nowhere and bringing in vets was basically pointless.

 

[BruinDust]

So on Overdrive on TSN, they are talking about a local radio interview with Vegas owner Bill Foley. They asked him about sending Nate Schmidt within the division, to which he replied won't matter as their will be a Canadian division next year as the borders will likely still be closed. He also speculated some teams can't afford to operate without fans in the stands.

4 temporary divisions next year? How would you feel about?

Canadian Division (7 teams)

West - SJ, LA, Ana, Vegas, Arizona, Dal, Col, Min

Central/South - Detroit, CBJ, Chi, St.L, Car, Nsh, TB, FLA

Eastern - Bos, Buf, NYI, NYR, NJ, Wsh, Philly, Pitt

 

[The Laukomotive]

So on Overdrive on TSN, they are talking about a local radio interview with Vegas owner Bill Foley. They asked him about sending Nate Schmidt within the division, to which he replied won't matter as their will be a Canadian division next year as the borders will likely still be closed. He also speculated some teams can't afford to operate without fans in the stands.

4 temporary divisions next year? How would you feel about?

Canadian Division (7 teams)

West - SJ, LA, Ana, Vegas, Arizona, Dal, Col, Min

Central/South - Detroit, CBJ, Chi, St.L, Car, Nsh, TB, FLA

Eastern - Bos, Buf, NYI, NYR, NJ, Wsh, Philly, Pitt

I say yes to as much Vegas vs Colorado as possible.

 

[WhalerTurnedBruin55]

So on Overdrive on TSN, they are talking about a local radio interview with Vegas owner Bill Foley. They asked him about sending Nate Schmidt within the division, to which he replied won't matter as their will be a Canadian division next year as the borders will likely still be closed. He also speculated some teams can't afford to operate without fans in the stands.

4 temporary divisions next year? How would you feel about?

Canadian Division (7 teams)

West - SJ, LA, Ana, Vegas, Arizona, Dal, Col, Min

Central/South - Detroit, CBJ, Chi, St.L, Car, Nsh, TB, FLA

Eastern - Bos, Buf, NYI, NYR, NJ, Wsh, Philly, Pitt

I'm not against that. I am curious what the game plan is... seems silly for the teams to even be playing in their main arenas if there's not gonna be fans.

 

[BruinDust]

I'm not against that. I am curious what the game plan is... seems silly for the teams to even be playing in their main arenas if there's not gonna be fans.

Might be just to appease the players so they don't have to live in a bubble set-up maybe? Certainly cheaper on the league, the RTP bubbles were costly.

At least the players are home half of the time if they use home arenas.

 

[Dr Hook]

So on Overdrive on TSN, they are talking about a local radio interview with Vegas owner Bill Foley. They asked him about sending Nate Schmidt within the division, to which he replied won't matter as their will be a Canadian division next year as the borders will likely still be closed. He also speculated some teams can't afford to operate without fans in the stands.

4 temporary divisions next year? How would you feel about?

Canadian Division (7 teams)

West - SJ, LA, Ana, Vegas, Arizona, Dal, Col, Min

Central/South - Detroit, CBJ, Chi, St.L, Car, Nsh, TB, FLA

Eastern - Bos, Buf, NYI, NYR, NJ, Wsh, Philly, Pitt

If you were to not have a Canadian Division but distribute the geography like this among four divisions, for the regular non-Covid NHL it would be better. No reason to have those teams in an eastern division instead of the Florida teams, for example.

 

[BruinDust]

If you were to not have a Canadian Division but distribute the geography like this among four divisions, for the regular non-Covid NHL it would be better. No reason to have those teams in an eastern division instead of the Florida teams, for example.

I think this is all about the closed border. If the border is open I think the divisions stay as they are. If the border is closed the only alternative I see to the Canadian division is to do what the Blue Jays did this year and find a location in the US for each of the 7 Canadian teams so border crossing becomes a non-issue.

 

[WhalerTurnedBruin55]

Might be just to appease the players so they don't have to live in a bubble set-up maybe? Certainly cheaper on the league, the RTP bubbles were costly.

At least the players are home half of the time if they use home arenas.

I know, but I mean staffing the TD Banknorth Garden is going to cost a lot more than let's say Warrior arena.
*I'm not suggesting they play at Warrior, but basically something not quite as grand as a full arena.

I don't know the solution, it's a lot different having 31 arenas open, instead of the 2 that were open for the bubble.

 

[BruinDust]

I know, but I mean staffing the TD Banknorth Garden is going to cost a lot more than let's say Warrior arena.
*I'm not suggesting they play at Warrior, but basically something not quite as grand as a full arena.

I don't know the solution, it's a lot different having 31 arenas open, instead of the 2 that were open for the bubble.

Yeah there are so many factors, it's hard to wrap your head around it.

Would they do a set-up where you only play within your temp division, but the games happen at a "neutral site" i.e. all Eastern division games are played at the TD Garden, i.e. Rangers vs. Devils from the TD Garden. Or maybe even a true neutral site that is centralized for each division (as the teams in the west and central will be fairly spread out), to reduce travel time/frequency/costs.

I'd say everything is on the table at this point.

 

[Absurdity]

$16.25M tied to their top 3 RWs

 

[Fenway]

 

[Chevalier du Clavier]

I didn't see this on the board, so apologies if it was already posted elsewhere, Elliotte Friedman had an interesting note in his 31 Thoughts blog. It's his No. 6 thought.

What we’re hearing: the Golden Knights, aggressive from their owner on down, tried to do even more, considering [Taylor] Hall and Steven Stamkos. ... I do believe Stamkos was asked to consider waiving his no-move by Tampa Bay. There’s a wall of secrecy around it ...

 

[DCHabitant]

So on Overdrive on TSN, they are talking about a local radio interview with Vegas owner Bill Foley. They asked him about sending Nate Schmidt within the division, to which he replied won't matter as their will be a Canadian division next year as the borders will likely still be closed. He also speculated some teams can't afford to operate without fans in the stands.

4 temporary divisions next year? How would you feel about?

Canadian Division (7 teams)

West - SJ, LA, Ana, Vegas, Arizona, Dal, Col, Min

Central/South - Detroit, CBJ, Chi, St.L, Car, Nsh, TB, FLA

Eastern - Bos, Buf, NYI, NYR, NJ, Wsh, Philly, Pitt

I'm confused. So Canadian teams will only play amongst themselves (based on his explanation re borders)? Don't really see that happening.

 

[BruinDust]

I'm confused. So Canadian teams will only play amongst themselves (based on his explanation re borders)? Don't really see that happening.

Well the Canadian Gov't wouldn't allow the Blue Jays to set up at Rogers Center and bring in teams from the other side of the border to play, which forced them down into Buffalo. So by that logic than yes, the Canadian teams would only play games amongst themselves.

I'm sure the league doesn't want to go down this road, but they may not have a choice if they want to play next season.

 

[DCHabitant]

Well the Canadian Gov't wouldn't allow the Blue Jays to set up at Rogers Center and bring in teams from the other side of the border to play, which forced them down into Buffalo. So by that logic than yes, the Canadian teams would only play games amongst themselves.

I'm sure the league doesn't want to go down this road, but they may not have a choice if they want to play next season.

Don't you think it's more likely that Canadian teams will play in the U.S.? Maybe share arenas with U.S. teams? Or play in their opponent's arena the entire season?

 

[BruinDust]

Don't you think it's more likely that Canadian teams will play in the U.S.? Maybe share arenas with U.S. teams? Or play in their opponent's arena the entire season?

Honestly it's hard to say.

One thing to keep in mind is the NHL will have an eye towards a goal of having some fans in the building eventually as they move along here. Maybe a few hundred household groups (bubbles) all socially distanced from each other if things improve into the spring months of 2021. Having Canadian teams in based in the US will make that less palatable. With the Jays in Buffalo, there was never any intention to allow fans in. And switching back mid-season to Canadian markets mid-season if the border opens up to some degree (maybe not a full opening but a modified one) is clumbersome as now the players may have to quarantine when they re-enter Canada.

Another issue is then finding buildings where you can place the 7 teams. The Jays tried a few places only to be rebuffed before settling on Buffalo. And like you said do they use neutral non-NHL cities (Grand Forks, ND for example) or try to double-up in current US based arenas or have the CAN teams essentially always playing "road" games.

So many different scenarios. I also think any chance of a full 82 game season is out the window with a Jan-Feb re-start as they will likely want to A) finish before the 2021 Summer Olympics and B) Not have their season run into August/Sept again further delaying the 2021-22 season. So a schedule where teams don't play out of their new temporary divisions if it came to that isn't as drastic a measure if we are looking at 50ish game season. We already seen two lock-out years where the teams didn't play outside of their conference.

I'm glad I'm not making the decisions as this could go a hundred different ways.

 

[DCHabitant]

Honestly it's hard to say.

One thing to keep in mind is the NHL will have an eye towards a goal of having some fans in the building eventually as they move along here. Maybe a few hundred household groups (bubbles) all socially distanced from each other if things improve into the spring months of 2021. Having Canadian teams in based in the US will make that less palatable. With the Jays in Buffalo, there was never any intention to allow fans in. And switching back mid-season to Canadian markets mid-season if the border opens up to some degree (maybe not a full opening but a modified one) is clumbersome as now the players may have to quarantine when they re-enter Canada.

Another issue is then finding buildings where you can place the 7 teams. The Jays tried a few places only to be rebuffed before settling on Buffalo. And like you said do they use neutral non-NHL cities (Grand Forks, ND for example) or try to double-up in current US based arenas or have the CAN teams essentially always playing "road" games.

So many different scenarios. I also think any chance of a full 82 game season is out the window with a Jan-Feb re-start as they will likely want to A) finish before the 2021 Summer Olympics and B) Not have their season run into August/Sept again further delaying the 2021-22 season. So a schedule where teams don't play out of their new temporary divisions if it came to that isn't as drastic a measure if we are looking at 50ish game season. We already seen two lock-out years where the teams didn't play outside of their conference.

I'm glad I'm not making the decisions as this could go a hundred different ways.

You make good points. Hope they can figure something out. Hungry for hockey, especially given the dearth of alternative entertainment.

 

[WestCoastBruinsFan]

Don't you think it's more likely that Canadian teams will play in the U.S.? Maybe share arenas with U.S. teams? Or play in their opponent's arena the entire season?

That’s possible but if I were a player playing for a Canadian team, I would want to avoid them US for now. Also, the teams would pretty much have to stay in the US for the duration probably without their families. I doubt they would be able to jump back and forth as they would also have to isolate upon their return. Maybe, if they play two months only in Canada, two months only in the US but I don’t know. It will be a challenge.