The CyNick
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- Sep 17, 2009
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Lets just put that in context alone.
A 48 game regular season and Canadian division would see every team play each other 8 times each to eliminate 3 teams.
Then the remaining 4 teams would play best of 7 series in round #1 and #2 to declare a Div winner however that would mean 8 regular season games & potentially another best of 7 playoff games against the very same opponents = 15 games X 2 (after rounds #1 and #2 playoffs) to determine winner and move on to round #3 in USA.
So over the course of 4 months (Jan - April) we could see the Leafs beat up on Ottawa 8 times (regular season) and then play against Winnipeg or Calgary or whomever 15 times (playoffs rounds #1 and #2) during that span and then join the USA already in progress playing 2 more rounds 3 & 4 (maximum 14 games against only 2 of 24 USA based teams).
Is that really the option the NHL is considering on the table to declare the 2020-21 Stanley Cup winner and play this season in a pandemic?
It seems that way.
I think for the sake of parity they should have the US group into 3 divisions and follow a similar format to the CDN division to further reduce travel.