The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

[Majingir]

With the regular season officially over, time to focus on the playoffs, which won't start for at least 2 MONTHS.

If the games do happen, this will be more unpredictable playoffs ever, and that's saying something after last year (I had a perfect bracket last year. That is, perfectly wrong. Every pick I believe I was wrong on).


1 playoff move announced so far. Leafs adding Nick Robertson to their playoff roster. Will join a list which surprisingly has more names than I thought of players who made NHL debut in the playoffs. Although he'd be the first to make his NHL debut in July or August.

Basically everyone injured is back too. Leafs getting Muzzin and Mikheyev back, maybe Johnsson too. I believe Jones was out for the Jackets and will be back. Stamkos back for Tampa. Among others.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

Sounds like NHL might not be able to work around the 14 day quarantine if they have games in Canada, so that could eliminate 3 cities from list of hub cities.

That would leave Chicago, Dallas, Vegas, Minnesota, Columbus and Pittsburgh.

Having 8 different series in each of the first 2 rounds, but only 2 hub cities, wouldn't that only make for 2 games a day(1 per city)?

[jeebs9]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

It's nice that they have a date and all. But I'm not 100 percent sure it's going to workout

Sent from my Pixel 4 XL using Tapatalk

[mercalnd]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

Having 8 different series in each of the first 2 rounds, but only 2 hub cities, wouldn't that only make for 2 games a day(1 per city)?

Nothing is stopping them from having multiple games in the same arena on the same day. This is done in international tourneys and other tournaments such as the Memorial Cup all the time. You might encounter a game goes into extra OTs and forces the next one to start later but I think they can work around that.

You can have an Eastern Conference series play earlier and start a Western Conference game once the first one is done. Since there will be no traveling and no attendance, there's no obstacle to having East and West teams playing in the same hub city to accomodate this rather than all West series being in one hub city and all East series in another.

It would actually help the fans catch their team's games that way. You can have even more games on weekends.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

I'd imagine they want to clean the locker rooms between games?

Even when they have international tournaments, we still have a couple hours between games.

Would they just have an afternoon and evening game? 1pm start for game 1, 7pm start for game 2?

[mercalnd]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

I'd imagine they want to clean the locker rooms between games?

Even when they have international tournaments, we still have a couple hours between games.

Would they just have an afternoon and evening game? 1pm start for game 1, 7pm start for game 2?

Arenas generally have more than 2 locker rooms.

I could be wrong but I believe the couple hours between games in tournaments is because you have to empty the building and then fill it back up with people who have tickets for the next game. By contrast, March Madness in basketball has tickets to sessions of 2 games each with very little break between the games as they don't need to empty and refill the building. Either way, This would not be an issue given there will be no one in attendance.

I suppose if they are dead set on having a couple of hours between games they coul have a 5 pm eastern start and then a 10 pm eastern start. Or 6 and 11.

None of this is ideal but my point is there are fairly easy ways to have more than one game per day in a given bilding.

[bhurst99]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

There was a report today that full training camps aren't even going to open until July 10 at the earliest. You figure three weeks training camp from that date and we're looking at August start date for the play-in.

Maybe I'll be interested when the games get closer, but hockey in August just sounds so wrong. It would be like Major League Baseball in January.

I imagine teams will play every second day. You can't play every day -- guys need time to rest. Even with a full training camp, there's going to be muscle injuries. The quality would be horrendous if they play every day.

Edmonton thinks if they're a hub city, it will worth about $10 million to the city. I have no idea how they arrived at that figure. I guess based on the value of hotel rooms and food. Sounds crazy high to me.

[bcruise]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

There was a report today that full training camps aren't even going to open until July 10 at the earliest. You figure three weeks training camp from that date and we're looking at August start date for the play-in.

As a fan, and from that perspective only, I don't really have an issue with seeing hockey in August (especially if we have nothing else), but the more I think about this it's hard to imagine it not disrupting the 2020-2021 schedule in some form. Which is something they said they wanted to avoid.

And that's not getting into the other concerns you mentioned.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

It's already weird watching hockey in May (thanks a lot Leafs...), August will be weirder.

Although in a regular offseason, late July/early August is when I really start missing hockey.

We've been without hockey for so long that under a normal offseason, we'd be coming up on preseason in a few weeks (it's been 2.5 months since the last game was played)

[nikethebike]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

It's already weird watching hockey in May (thanks a lot Leafs...), August will be weirder.

Although in a regular offseason, late July/early August is when I really start missing hockey.

We've been without hockey for so long that under a normal offseason, we'd be coming up on preseason in a few weeks (it's been 2.5 months since the last game was played)

Yeah... It is weird.


Risk that this announcement was just one step on the way to cancel it all. They declared the season over. Next step is there will be no playoff. I hope they will do the playoff though, I miss hockey.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

I still don't know how I survived multiple lockouts.

It's only been 2.5 months and I'm missing hockey. It will be closer to 5 months before any games happen.

How did we survive a full season cancelled and no games for half a year almost a decade after that?

[bhurst99]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

I still don't know how I survived multiple lockouts.

It's only been 2.5 months and I'm missing hockey. It will be closer to 5 months before any games happen.

How did we survive a full season cancelled and no games for half a year almost a decade after that?

I missed it in April and a bit of May. But I think playoffs in August in front of no fans will be such an abomination I won't care for it. I will probably tune in at the start out of curiosity but I think I'm going to turn it off quickly. This format makes such a mockery of the regular season, I could see some upsets in the play-in round really turning off some fans.

[Majingir]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

I missed it in April and a bit of May. But I think playoffs in August in front of no fans will be such an abomination I won't care for it. I will probably tune in at the start out of curiosity but I think I'm going to turn it off quickly. This format makes such a mockery of the regular season, I could see some upsets in the play-in round really turning off some fans.

No fans will hurt watching games involving teams that aren't your own. I won't care so much watching a Lightning vs Caps series with nobody there.

One of best parts of playoffs are the crowds. Hanging on every play, every goal, it's great. Obviously we can't have that, but still sucks.

[Fiddy]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

With all these protests and what not and all the gathers, heck with it, start these games up with packed houses. Lets go!

[Majingir]

Re: The Official NHL 2019-2020 Stanley Cup Playoffs Thread

https://twitter.com/FriedgeHNIC/status/1268602148104949760?s=19

I hope this is permanent. I've always been a fan of reseeding.