Fansided

Pushing the start of the 2020-21 NHL season to December is a terrible idea

By Mary Clarke

ST PAUL, MINNESOTA - OCTOBER 20: Linesman Ryan Daisy drops the puck for Mikko Koivu #9 of the Minnesota Wild and Nate Thompson #44 of the Montreal Canadiens to face-off during the game at Xcel Energy Center on October 20, 2019 in St Paul, Minnesota. The Wild defeated the Canadiens 4-3. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images)
ST PAUL, MINNESOTA - OCTOBER 20: Linesman Ryan Daisy drops the puck for Mikko Koivu #9 of the Minnesota Wild and Nate Thompson #44 of the Montreal Canadiens to face-off during the game at Xcel Energy Center on October 20, 2019 in St Paul, Minnesota. The Wild defeated the Canadiens 4-3. (Photo by Hannah Foslien/Getty Images) /
facebooktwitterreddit

With the NHL looking at all possible avenues to resume the 2019-20 season, the league should not even think about pushing next season’s start to December.

It is still unknown what shape or form the NHL’s 2019-20 season will take if and when the season can resume later this year. Since the league paused in mid-March due to the coronavirus, the NHL has been working on countless ideas on ways to award the Stanley Cup for the 2019-20 season that was nearly finished by the time the league went on hiatus.

Of the ideas that have been circulated over the last month and a half, the league’s hope has been to do their best to crown a champion for the 2019-20 season, while lessening the impact on the 2020-21 season as much as possible. It’s a delicate balancing act, one that will end up being a compromise in one way or another as there is no ideal solution given the current state of the world.

However, one idea that the NHL is reportedly considering is the idea of starting the 2020-21 season as late as December. League commissioner Gary Bettman told NHL Network on Thursday that they are not ruling out the possibility of pushing the start of the 2020-21 season into December to accommodate the games they need to play to finish out this current one.

“We have a great deal of flexibility in terms of when we can start,” Bettman said. “There’s no magic for next season of starting in October as we traditionally do. If we have to start in November or December, that’s something that will be under consideration. We’re going to try to make good, prudent, careful judgments. This isn’t a race to be first back.”

The NHL has stated before the possibility of restarting the 2019-20 season in late-July, with the playoffs ending in September before starting the 2020-21 season in November. However, this is the first time the league has acknowledged the possibility of pushing back the 2020-21 season into December with the hopes of playing a full 82-game season.

Why is the NHL considering a December start to the 2020-21 season?

It’s a very bold idea for the NHL, and one that is frankly just not viable. While the league is adamant on awarding the Stanley Cup for this season sometime this year, pushing the 2020-21 season that far into the year would cause a domino effect that would catastrophically shorten the season and more than likely derail parts of the 2021-22 season as well.

For starters, pushing the start of the 2020-21 season into December would cause the NHL to cut corners on team’s schedules. That means more back-to-back games, less days off for players, cutting the bye weeks and the All-Star weekend while making the season a mad dash to the playoffs.

Given the season schedule is already brutal at times, compounding the 2020-21 season schedule after a December start would likely be disasterous on player health if the NHL wants to play a full 82-game season. The last time the NHL started a season that late was the 2012-13 lockout season, but even then the schedule was revised to 48 games and started in mid-January, finishing the regular season in late April and awarding the Stanley Cup in late June.

A November start would give the NHL more breathing room, no doubt, but a December start would likely take it too far for any hockey fan to be comfortable with.

Would a 2020-21 December start impact future NHL seasons?

Not only is player safety a concern, pushing the 2020-21 season that far back would also likely mean that parts of the 2021-22 season would be shifted around, causing a domino effect of the league’s own making. The currently unnamed Seattle franchise is set to take the stage for the first time in 2021-22, a landmark event for the NHL’s 32nd organization and likely last expansion team the league will see for some time.

Pushing the back the 2020-21 season will more than likely impact Seattle’s plans for their inaugural season, something the NHL would have to think about in the aftermath of their decision for next season.

It’s great to see that the NHL is trying to come up with out-of-the-box ways to restart the 2019-20 season if sports are allowed to resume. However, moving the start of the 2020-21 season into December would cause more problems than it would solve and is not a viable idea for the league to run with given these complications.

It’s unlikely that the NHL wants to cut short the 2019-20 regular season or remove the rest of it entirely should play return, but given the changing timelines, it is likely the best solution for the league long-term to start the 2020-21 season as early as possible.

dark. Next. NHL Seattle 'close' to revealing franchise name

Follow FanSided NHL for more news, analysis, opinion and unique coverage about hockey in all forms throughout the entire 2019-20 NHL season and beyond.

Home/NHL