The Ottawa Senators can finally, officially turn the page on the 2019-20 campaign.
But, who knows when they’ll write the next chapter because when next season will start is still up for a debate.
While there has been speculation the league will have a mid-December start to the 2020-21 season, there’s zero guarantee that’s going to happen if you listened to NHL commissioner Gary Bettman during his news conference on Tuesday announcing the plan for a return to play from the pause that got underway March 12.
Yes, the league is willing to play in two hub cities during the summer with no fans in the stands for the sake of national television and to try to cut down on the $1.1 billion dollar loss if the league doesn’t resume, but the NHL wants desperately to start next season with fans in the stands even if it means proper physical distancing measures have to be put in place.
Bettman suggested the league is willing to wait until Jan. 1, 2021 if necessary.
“Could we start (next season) with the Winter Classic? Anything’s possible,” Bettman said.
Later in a Zoom call with reporters, Bettman said the league is willing to push back the start of next year as long as it takes.
“We believe 2020-21 will be played in its entirety,” said Bettman. “There’s no magic to starting in October. Our buildings and markets can handle it. We can start in November or December and we could start in the beginning of January if we had to. We’re going to get through this season and then we’re going to make sure there’s enough of a pause after this season.
“And, then we’ll start up again. We’ll start working on that in the next couple of months.”
Though owner Eugene Melnyk, general manager Pierre Dorion, and coach D.J. Smith were hopeful the club would be able to finish its season by suiting up this summer, the reality is it made zero sense to bring back all 31 teams which is why only 24 will take part in the summer.
The NHL wants badly to return and would be pointless to have teams sitting outside the playoffs return.
“We hope that this is a step towards normalcy,” Bettman said. “Today represents an important step in the process but we have a long road ahead of us. Hopefully today is a sign of good things to come.”
Bettman said the league looked at every possible scenario and the 24 teams was the best option.
“We considered a lot of options,” said Bettman.
Teams like Ottawa that get a lengthy break may be allowed to start earlier than the rest of the teams in training camp next season.
“We’re dealing with a lot of issues and we’re going to be sensitive to issues competitively,” said deputy commissioner Bill Daly. “Our hockey operations are focused on that, we’re going to focus with the players on that and there may very well be different off-season rules because we’ve never been in this type of situation before. Unique situations sometimes necessitate unique measures.”
Twitter: @sungarrioch
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