According to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, the NHL has released the breakdown of how games will be scheduled as the NHL tries to start things back up again on August 1.
With a tight timeline in which to broadcast and complete all of the games that are required for the 24-team play-in, plus the round robin seeding games, and award the Stanley Cup by October, the NHL is going to have to work at a quick pace. As such, there will be three games per day at each of the hub locations (Edmonton and Toronto), for a total of six games per day.
These games will be scheduled for the same time each day – 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm. Keeping in mind the time difference in Toronto and Edmonton, on the east coast, this means games will be on at noon, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm, and 10pm. On the west coast things will get started a little earlier with games at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, and 7pm.
He adds that:
“Teams likely to be playing two games every three days to start — no travel days obviously — but that may not always hold true. Preliminary (best of five) round likely to be done in 9 or 10 days. Regular playoffs (best of seven) still closer to two weeks.”
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There could be issues for the NHL when it comes to overtime, but the play-in games will feature an overtime similar to that of the regular season. As for the best-of-seven playoffs, any lengthy overtime could means games being delayed and started later, some as late as midnight.
For fans missing hockey, they’re about to get a boatload of it in a short time span.
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