Tokyo Olympic postponement gives NHL more time to stage the playoffs

The Tokyo Olympics are moving to 2021, giving the NHL the rest of the calendar year to award this season’s Stanley Cup, should they be able to do so.

The postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, originally set to happen in late July, is an unfortunate time for the sports world. Though moving the Olympics into 2021 is ultimately the right move to make, it’s still disappointing to know we will be without the Olympic Games this upcoming summer.

However, the postponement could be good news for the NHL and their hopeful eventual resumption of the 2019-20 season. NHL players have recently proposed an idea that would get the league playing in July, with awarding the Stanley Cup in September and starting the 2020-21 season in November.

In order for that idea to work, however, the league would have had to play around the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, which were scheduled for late July to early August. The NHL would have to be competing for airtime plus eyeballs should they have restarted their season up against the Olympics, which would have been a no-win situation for the league.

Now, with the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics into next year, the NHL is free to resume their season — should they be able to, of course — at any time during the remainder of 2020 without conflicting schedules. Though the NHL will likely be competing with the NBA in terms of viewership, the two leagues always play their playoffs at the same time each season anyway, so the league wouldn’t be losing anything in that regard.

Sportsnet reported as much on Tuesday, stating that the NHL has told its teams that the window for the Stanley Cup playoffs has now been extended due to the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics. On Monday, the league’s public relations Twitter account released a Q&A update on the league’s status, stating their hope is to resume play later this year.

“The form and format of resumption of play scenarios will depend entirely on what transpires between now and when we are permitted and able to resume — and, ultimately, on timing and taking into account logistical constraints. We are going to have to be flexible and react to events as they unfold as well as the best medical advice available.”

The NHL is adamant that it will reward a Stanley Cup champion for the 2019-20 season, and with this latest news about the postponement of the 2020 Tokyo Olympics, the league’s path to resuming play just got a little bit easier.

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