So how will the schedule work?

[nilan30]

I'm not sure if there is a central thread to just talk about the potential schedule but how are they going to pull this off in the play-in round and the first actual playoff round? Will they use two rinks in each city or just one?

I kind of thought it would make sense to bracket the playoffs and put 4 East and 4 West teams at each site.

Than you could have at each site (using only one rink)

-Monday 5 PM - Eastern Conf Game, 10 PM Western Conf Game. Eastern Conf game starts at 5 instead of 7 to allow for overtimes
-Tuesday same sched but the other 4 teams.
-Wednesday - The Monday teams are back at it.

You could go back to teams consistently playing every other night since there is no travel. I hope they don't do something stupid like have say, the Leafs series have two nights off so they can play on Saturday every week. Or rearrange things to make sure the Pens are on NBC on Sunday afternoon.

This kind of set up doesn't work as well by putting one whole conference in one city.

Anyways, I'm just really curious how the schedule will work. Has anything been said about the format?

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[thaman8765678]

You can't have weekday games starting at 5pm eastern or you'd lose ratings from half the country still being at work.

 

[nilan30]

You can't have weekday games starting at 5pm eastern or you'd lose ratings from half the country still being at work.

Agreed, but I don't see how they are going to do it without afternoon games, or having games at Eastern games at 10PM East and Western games at 10 PM Pacific. Even if they use two rinks per city.

 

[Golden_Jet]

Play-ins will have 6 series, so 3 per day
2 rinks
1 rink 2 games ,the other 1 game
There will be afternoon games

 

[NYRfan85]

With how many games need to be played, there's no way there won't be any afternoon games. With each conference having (4) play-in series, plus the Top-4 round robin, that's potentially a maximum of 6 games each day. They can (and basically have to) make it work with 3 games each day. Having afternoon/early evening games during the week hasn't stopped the NFL or MLB. All of the Monday/Thursday night NFL games happen at 5:30 Pacific time, and they've been doing that for years. MLB has 1:00 games all the time during the week.

 

[Mickey Marner]

I imagine the television schedule will operate fairly normally. Rogers and NBC still have specific time slots they want/need filled.

 

[Mikeshane]

There's the question of how much preparation time do they need between games, and what kind of cushion they'll put in to allow for games going to OT.

I was thinking something like(Eastern Time):
2PM Game 1 Toronto
5PM Game 1 Edmonton
7PM Game 2 Toronto
10PM Game 2 Edmonton

Teams should be able to play every second day throughout the whole playoffs as they'll be doing no travel.

 

[thaman8765678]

If there are afternoon week day games and I miss seeing my team play... nhl even more of a joke than I thought.

 

[kcin94]

Play-ins will have 6 series, so 3 per day
2 rinks
1 rink 2 games ,the other 1 game
There will be afternoon games

I would guess the round-robin games would be in the afternoon. Also those are 6 games total over 10 days or so, thus it's not like it's every day.

For example, let's say the games start on Sat. Aug 1. Then the RR games could be

Sat. RR1
Sun. RR2

Tues RR3
Wed RR4

Sat RR5
Sun. RR6

or the last two could be moved to an evening as not all play-in series are likely to go 5 games.

Hence the afternoon games are only really an issue for the RR3 and RR4 games

 

[kcin94]

If there are afternoon week day games and I miss seeing my team play... nhl even more of a joke than I thought.

The play-in/round robin round will be over two weekends, so the amount of afternoon games will likely be minimal if at all.

 

[Isaac Nootin]

If there are afternoon week day games and I miss seeing my team play... nhl even more of a joke than I thought.

It's truly unfortunate that the NHL didn't factor in thaman8765678's schedule when planning a return to play.

 

[njdevils1982]

the nhl should hold some kind of fancy lottery for the time slots the teams will play in

 

[Rob Brown]

You can't have weekday games starting at 5pm eastern or you'd lose ratings from half the country still being at work.

There will definitely be afternoon games.

 

[M88K]

Seeding games between locked in teams in the afternoon.
Play in games in the evenings.
Ie
Boston plays Washington at noon. Game means nothing. It's a glorified conditioning game at 12pm. Still going to have 3on3 and shootouts in these games so they will end promptly.
4pm play in game 1.
8pm play in game 1 of another series with a 2nd rink on standby for lengthy ots

 

[rojac]

If indeed it is the case that they will only be using the NHL rinks for games (and based on earlier comments from the NHL, that would seem to be the case), then we will be looking at 2 or 3 games a day at each hub during the qualifying and round-robin games, 2 games a day during round 1, and 1 game a day during round 2. There's going to be no good way to do this that won';t result in teams playing at odd times.

So, I would play the qualifying rounds at 4 pm and 9 pm and on the 6 days where you need to play a round-robin game as well, I would play that at Noon.

I think you want to schedule at least 4 hours for the round-robin game (3 hours for the actual game and an hour to allow for a good ice cleaning and warm-up for the night game) and probably 5 hours for the qualifying rounds (because of the fact that they'll be using playoff overtime rules). You might be able to gamble on 4 1/2 hours and play games at 4 and 8:30. Each of the 4 series would be played on alternate days and they would alternate start times with the other series being on their day. So, let's say you had CBJ-TOR and NYR-CAR on the same day. For Game 1 of those series, you might do CBJ-TOR at 4:00 pm and NYR-CAR at 8:30/9:00 pm and so Game 2 would reverse that to NYR-CAR at 4:00 pm and CBJ-TOR at 8:30/9:00. As teams are eliminated, I would move games around for the best start times.

As someone suggested above, assuming these pre-playoff games are played over two weekends, I would play the round robin games on Sat, Sun, Tues, Thurs, Sat , Sun (or something similar).

For round 1, I would again do 2 series a day on alternating days. During the week, I would play games at 4:00 and 8:30/9:00. On weekends, I would do 1:00 and 7:00.

The schedule would be the same for both hubs (or maybe offset by an hour). The west games would be played at PT and the east games at ET.

For round 2, you only have 2 series at each hub, so you can simply play them all in prime time (7 or 8 pm ET/PT) .

All of this assumes no back-to-back games.

 

[Sniper99]

If there are afternoon week day games and I miss seeing my team play... nhl even more of a joke than I thought.

Life's a *****!
Is MLB a joke too for having afternoon games while you're at work.

 

[LeafsNation75]

I imagine the television schedule will operate fairly normally. Rogers and NBC still have specific time slots they want/need filled.

Is NBC still going to have the first say in what games they show and the start time before Rogers? For example last year in the 2019 playoffs they were able to say Game 6 between the Maple Leafs and Bruins started at 3:00 PM EST and not 7:00 PM EST, despite that game being played in Toronto.

 

[Mickey Marner]

Is NBC still going to have the first say in what games they show and the start time before Rogers? For example last year in the 2019 playoffs they were able to say Game 6 between the Maple Leafs and Bruins started at 3:00 PM EST and not 7:00 PM EST, despite that game being played in Toronto.

I have no idea. A 3pm start in August sounds dumb though.

 

[rojac]

I have no idea. A 3pm start in August sounds dumb though.

You're going to have them. And why does it sound dumb? People watch sports on weekend afternoons in August.

 

[M88K]

Life's a *****!
Is MLB a joke too for having afternoon games while you're at work.

Of course MLB is a joke, what kind of question is that? Have you ever tried watching baseball? It's like a less exciting soccer. Both are unwatchable

 

[rojac]

Of course MLB is a joke, what kind of question is that? Have you ever tried watching baseball? It's like a less exciting soccer. Both are unwatchable

Oh, look, another poster who thinks life is centered around them. Some of us like baseball -- as much as and sometimes more than hockey. The NHL wishes it was as big a joke as MLB -- MLB has about double the revenues of the NHL.

 

[ACC1224]

You can't have weekday games starting at 5pm eastern or you'd lose ratings from half the country still being at work.

1/2 the country is going to work?

 

[M88K]

Oh, look, another poster who thinks life is centered around them. Some of us like baseball -- as much as and sometimes more than hockey. The NHL wishes it was as big a joke as MLB -- MLB has about double the revenues of the NHL.

In still trying to figure out what you meant to infer with that life's centered around them comment. But considering you like baseball "as much sometimes more" than hockey in not sure I really care either .

 

[ACC1224]

Is NBC still going to have the first say in what games they show and the start time before Rogers? For example last year in the 2019 playoffs they were able to say Game 6 between the Maple Leafs and Bruins started at 3:00 PM EST and not 7:00 PM EST, despite that game being played in Toronto.

Everyone knows that was scheduled that way to give the B’s an unfair advantage.

 

[rojac]

In still trying to figure out what you meant to infer with that life's centered around them comment. But considering you like baseball "as much sometimes more" than hockey in not sure I really care either .

What I meant was you seem to treat your own beliefs like they are the gospel truth. You don't like baseball, therefore baseball is dumb and nobody should like it.

I don't like with football or soccer. Do I think they are dumb? No, they just don't interest me as sports. But I see no need to insult the sports, their leagues, or their fans.

And as far as baseball vs. hockey for me. I love both. I was raised a hockey fan -- a third generation Leafs fan on both sides of my family. My parents were both Leafs as were 3 out of my 4 grandparents. My mother had fond memories of sitting on her father's knee, listening to Foster Hewitt on the radio. But baseball is the sport that I discovered myself and I became a baseball fan myself (in particular, the Montreal Expos) -- my parents later joining me in my fandom.