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NHL Targeting October 12 Start For The 2021-22 Season

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There has been an expectation that the NHL would look to have an abbreviated offseason this summer in an effort to try to get back to more of a normal calendar for the 2021-22 campaign.  It appears that this is indeed the case as Pierre LeBrun of TSN and The Athletic reports (Twitter link) that general managers were told in today’s meeting that October 12th has been set as the target start date for next season.

That would be only about a week later than the normal start date which would allow them to get back to more of a regular schedule.  Doing so also would allow them to hold close to a full-length training camp with LeBrun noting that the target date for those is September 22nd assuming there are no further delays to the schedule (or anything happen over the summer to change those plans).

At the beginning of this season, the plan was to hold the Entry Draft on July 23rd and 24th with free agency starting up on the 28th.  Considering the regular season schedule has been pushed back a couple of times since then, it’s uncertain if those will remain intact or get pushed back slightly.  Either way, with already less than a two-month gap between the original start to free agency and the desired start of training camps, it should be a quicker-paced offseason than it was last year.

NHL Issues More Schedule Updates

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The NHL schedule maker has completed another shift, moving things around to try and fit in 56 games for all 31 teams. The Colorado Avalanche were the team that precipitated changes this time thanks to their recent COVID situation, but other teams in the West Division will also be affected.

The changes are as follows:

  • Game #191, Colorado at St. Louis, scheduled for April 20, is now scheduled for Monday, April 26 at 7 p.m. ET
  • Game #762, St. Louis at Minnesota, scheduled for April 26, is now scheduled for Thursday, April 29 at 8 p.m. ET
  • Game #207, St. Louis at Minnesota, scheduled for May 12, is now scheduled for Saturday, May 1 at 8 p.m. ET
  • Game #764, Colorado at Vegas, scheduled for April 26, is now scheduled for Monday, May 10 at 10 p.m. ET
  • Game #688, Los Angeles at Colorado, scheduled for April 16, is now scheduled for Wednesday, May 12 at 9 p.m. ET
  • Game #790, Minnesota at St. Louis, scheduled for April 30, is now scheduled for Wednesday, May 12 at 8 p.m. ET
  • Game #162, Vegas at San Jose, scheduled for May 10, is now scheduled for Wednesday, May 12 at 9 p.m. ET
  • Game #704, Los Angeles at Colorado, scheduled for April 18, is now scheduled for Thursday, May 13 at 9 p.m. ET
  • Game #803, Minnesota at St. Louis, scheduled for May 1, is now scheduled for Thursday, May 13 at 8 p.m. ET

Of note, two games are now scheduled for May 13, extending the regular season for all four teams involved. The original plan was to have the season done by May 8, but that is obviously out the window after many of the league’s teams have experienced coronavirus outbreaks.

Morning Notes: Women’s Worlds, Seattle, Tryamkin

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The IIHF Women’s World Championship will be canceled for the second year in a row, according to Sportsnet’s Jeff Marek. The event was scheduled to take place in Halifax next month, but is now being shelved because of the ongoing COVID-19 situation in Canada. It’s difficult to keep seeing international events go down, but this one was especially important as teams from around the world prepared for the 2022 Olympics. They now will have to go another year without facing each other in the top annual tournament.

Update: The tournament in Halifax has been officially canceled, but the IIHF notes that “this does not mean that we will not have a Women’s World Championship in 2021.” Hockey Canada and the international organization will attempt to find another host city in the coming months.

More from around the hockey world:

  • The Seattle Kraken don’t have official standing in the league just yet so can’t make any signings or complete trades, but that doesn’t mean they haven’t been in touch with teams around the league. Pierre LeBrun and Ryan S. Clark of The Athletic examine six situations that could be ripe for an expansion draft deal, including one in Tampa Bay where the Lightning already have more salary committed to next season than they’re allowed to under the cap. Bolts’ GM Julien BriseBois will need to move out some contracts this summer and who better than the expansion Kraken to take a performing-but-overpaid forward off their hands.
  • The Vancouver Canucks are a great story to watch down the stretch as they try to make a postseason run following their huge COVID outbreak, but the front office will have to be a little more forward-looking in the days to come. One of those future moves could be bringing back Nikita Tryamkin, as Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet writes that the club will engage with the hulking defenseman in the next few days. Tryamkin has spent the last four seasons in the KHL where he has continued to develop into a legitimate two-way force, using his 6’7″ frame effectively all over the ice. The Russian defenseman’s agent Todd Diamond was on Donnie and Dhali just this week, saying he believes his client is ready for an NHL return.

Roberto Luongo Named GM Of Team Canada

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After a year where almost every international hockey event was canceled, things are getting back to normal soon. The IIHF World Championships are scheduled for May 21 – June 6 in Riga, Latvia, where teams including many playoff-eliminated NHL players will represent their respective countries. Canada has announced its management team for the event today, with an interesting name at the top.

Roberto Luongo has been named general manager, with Shane Doan and Scott Salmond assisting him as part of the management group. Both Luongo and Salmond are part of the Olympic management group as well for Canada, meaning this is something of a test run for the bigger event. Tom Renney, CEO of Hockey Canada, released a statement explaining the decision:

Hockey Canada is excited to have Roberto lead our management group at the IIHF World Championship this year, and to continue to work with our entire Olympic management team as we continue to prepare for the 2022 Olympics. We are also fortunate to have Shane and Scott contribute as assistant general managers; both individuals bring a wealth of experience to Canada’s National Men’s Team. Roberto, Shane and Scott bring a strong combination of NHL and international experience, both on and off the ice, and they will complement each other as we work towards building a team that can compete for a gold medal.

Luongo certainly brings international experience. The former goaltender competed at two World Juniors, four World Championships, three Olympic Games and a World Cup over his long, exceptional career. He’ll now have to do his best work off the ice, selecting and convincing the best available players to compete in the spring tournament.

Patrick Marleau Breaks NHL All-Time Games Played Record

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When the San Jose Sharks dropped the puck tonight against the Vegas Golden Knights, history was made. Patrick Marleau was in the lineup for San Jose, the 1,768th time that he has suited up for a regular season NHL game. This sets a new NHL record, breaking the age-old mark set by the one and only Gordie Howe in 1961.

While no one is comparing Marleau to Howe, who played six additional seasons in the WHA in addition to 26 years in the NHL and is considered one of the greatest of all time, Marleau has had a storied career of his own. The 41-year-old began his NHL story as the 1997 No. 2 overall pick, just one spot behind eventual long-time teammate Joe Thornton. Marleau played immediately for the Sharks, earning Calder Trophy votes in his first season, and the rest is history. Marleau played 19 consecutive seasons with San Jose before finally departing for the Toronto Maple Leafs in 2017. After two seasons in Toronto, Marleau was traded to the Carolina Hurricanes and subsequently bought out. He returned to San Jose, though the Sharks gave him potentially his last chance to win a Stanley Cup last year when he was traded to the Pittsburgh Penguins. It unfortunately didn’t work out for Marleau, but he was still welcomed back to San Jose again this season for a chance to break the games played record. While Marleau’s long career may not include a title, he has many other accolades. A three-time All-Star, Marleau has also received votes for the Hart Trophy five times, the Selke Trophy four times, and the Lady Byng trophy a whopping 15 times, not to mention earning a number of Sharks franchise records as well. Altogether, Marleau has 566 goals and 1196 points in his career, second and fourth respectively among all active players and top-50 all-time.

Beyond the statistics, Marleau has always provided the most important ability as well: availability. Outside of the lockout-shortened 2012-13 season and these past two COVID-impacted campaigns, Marleau has never played fewer than 74 games in a season – and that low mark occurred in his rookie season. In fact, Marleau already shares in another impressive NHL games played mark. He, Jarome Iginla, and Henrik Sedin are the only players in league history to have played every game in an 82-game schedule 11 times (although Sedin holds the record with 12).

Marleau’s new career games played record could stand the test of time as well. The only active players within even 500 games of the mark are Thornton, 41, Zdeno Chara, 44, and Eric Staal, 36. Marleau has the remainder of this season to further tack on games as well. What happens beyond that point is unknown, though many speculate that Marleau could retire now that the record is set, but also given the drop-off in his performance this year. However, Thornton and Chara are also equally likely to retire, while Staal is about six full 82-game seasons from matching the mark. Marleau should be safe for quite awhile atop the all-time games played list.

Congratulations to Marleau on this tremendous achievement from everyone at PHR.

WHL Cancels 2021 Postseason

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A difficult season for junior hockey in Canada continues. The Western Hockey League, whose teams did not begin regular season play until late February at the earliest, will play no more than their shortened 24-game season this year. The league has announced that there will be no 2021 WHL Playoffs due to “the ongoing challenges with COVID-19”. The season will conclude when all teams have completed their schedules, which for some is as early as later this month, and no league champion will be named.

On the heels of the announcement last week that that the CHL Memorial Cup would also not be played, the WHL’s decision not to host a postseason further limits their players’ abilities to showcase themselves to NHL teams. With the QMJHL facing a similar decision and the OHL still out of action this season, this is simply yet another blow to NHL front offices and their ability to evaluate top Canadian prospects ahead of July’s 2021 NHL Draft, not to mention the prospects hoping to be selected. While there have been talks of a CHL Top Prospects pre-draft tournament, such an event will not make up for a missed postseason, or in the OHL’s case a missed season.

Alas, the league is trying to put the health and safety of their players and staff first, even if that means impacting their draft chances. They also faced logistical struggles due to teams from multiple provinces and the United States participating, as travel is still restricted at Canadian borders. In the WHL’s release, they summarize the situation with the following:

We remained hopeful that public health conditions would improve, but unfortunately that is not the reality we see in front of us today. The ongoing challenges with non-essential interprovincial and international cross-border travel leave us no alternative but to cancel the 2021 WHL Playoffs.

NHL Announces Changes To North Division Schedule

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In response to the Vancouver Canucks’ recent medical testing (as well as some choice comments from J.T. Miller) the league decided that tonight’s game was not able to be played. Tomorrow’s scheduled match against the Toronto Maple Leafs has also been pushed, with it now being set for Sunday evening. The ripple effect of these changes spread out across the entire North Division (save for the Ottawa Senators), with more than a dozen other schedule alterations announced today.

  • Game #697, Toronto at Vancouver, scheduled for April 17, is now scheduled for Sunday, April 18 at 7 p.m. ET
  • Game #710, Toronto at Vancouver, scheduled for April 19, is now scheduled for Tuesday, April 20 at 9 p.m. ET
  • Game #726, Toronto at Winnipeg, scheduled for April 21, is now scheduled for Thursday, April 22 at 7 p.m. ET
  • Game #829, Edmonton at Vancouver, scheduled for April 16, is now scheduled for Monday, May 3 at 10 p.m. ET
  • Game #844, Edmonton at Vancouver, scheduled for May 6, is now scheduled for Tuesday, May 4 at 10 p.m. ET
  • Game #593, Vancouver at Edmonton, scheduled for May 4, is now scheduled for Thursday, May 6 at 9 p.m. ET
  • Game #526, Edmonton at Montreal, scheduled for May 11, is now scheduled for Wednesday, May 12 at 5 p.m. ET
  • Game #647, Vancouver at Calgary, scheduled for May 3, is now scheduled for Thursday, May 13 at 9 p.m. ET
  • Game #741, Toronto at Winnipeg, scheduled for April 23, is now scheduled for Friday, May 14 at 8 p.m. ET
  • Game #673, Vancouver at Edmonton, scheduled for May 13, is now scheduled for Saturday, May 15 at TBD
  • Game #567, Calgary at Vancouver, scheduled for April 21, is now scheduled for Sunday, May 16 at TBD
  • Game #864, Calgary at Vancouver, scheduled for May 15, is now scheduled for Tuesday, May 18 at TBD
  • Game #634, Vancouver at Calgary, scheduled for May 16, is now scheduled for Wednesday, May 19 at TBD

Tomorrow’s game between the Oilers and Jets has also been pulled up three hours to fill the now-vacant primetime spot on Hockey Night In Canada.

Important to note here is that the North Division schedule now extends through May 19, the last day the NHL had built into their “buffer” before the playoffs are set to begin. Perhaps even more telling is that all those games scheduled past May 15 are between the Canucks and Flames, two teams who could be eliminated from postseason contention at that point.

NHL Postpones Avalanche Games Through April 20

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The NHL has been forced to shut down another team for at least the next few days. After the Colorado Avalanche canceled morning skate today following another positive test result, the league has postponed their games through April 20. That means tonight’s game against the Los Angeles Kings and Tuesday’s game against the St. Louis Blues will have to be rescheduled further down the line.

The hope is that the Avalanche can re-open their practice and training facilities on Wednesday, April 21 and return to action on the following night.

Bowen Byram was joined by Philipp Grubauer on the COVID Protocol Related Absences list earlier this week, though the team continued with their scheduled games. Today it was announced that another positive test result had come back from yesterday’s testing, though it is not clear which player will be in the protocol when the list is revealed in a few hours.

Scheduling Notes: World Championships, Olympics, CHL Top Prospects Event

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With the NHL Trade Deadline passed and the season proceeding as planned (for the most part), not to mention the college season coming to an end with European seasons soon to follow, it may seem as though the hockey schedule has reached a quiet period. However, there are still some major events on the horizon and planning never stops, especially with numerous challenges still being faced. The next big hockey event, even before the 2021 Stanley Cup Playoffs really hit their stride, is the 2021 IIHF World Championship – and that is part of the problem. While the World Championships typically take place during the NHL’s postseason, the continued delays of the league’s schedule is going to create an even larger conundrum this year. The tournament, scheduled to take place in Latvia from May 21 to June 6, are proceeding as planned. However, the NHL regular season is currently on pace to end on May 16, if not later, due to the delays created by the recent COVID-19 outbreak within the Vancouver Canucks locker room. This means that when the World Championship begins, the postseason will have just begun and national teams will be without options from 16 NHL teams. There are still ongoing concerns related to the Coronavirus as well, reports TSN’s Darren Dreger. He notes that there are talks that the World Championship could take place in a bubble format. This could mean that new entrants are not permitted or, at the very least, would need to quarantine. Realistically, this means that players from NHL playoff teams are unlikely to play in the tournament at all and those on teams whose regulars seasons end late, they too might not be available from the get-go, if at all. The Worlds could have a very different look this year, but after the 2020 event was canceled, the IIHF seems determined to make it work one way or another.

  • The 2022 Winter Olympic Games are less than a year away and with the re-scheduled 2020 Summer Games proceeding this summer, there is little doubt that the Winter Games will happen. The NHL has not officially announced that they are returning to the Olympics, but national committees have been operating as if they will. TSN’s Pierre LeBrun notes that Hockey Canada specifically has already begun trimming their list of roster candidates for the upcoming tournament. He states that the Canadian brain trust began with a long list of possibilities but that his has been reduced by about 20% already by Doug Armstrong and his staff and the hope it to get down to a “medium list” by the end of the season. This will allow the team to hold an Olympic camp this summer to further evaluate their candidates and form a short list before next season. At that time, LeBrun notes that the yet-to-be-named coaching staff will be part of the final roster cuts. However, for this plan to proceed as Hockey Canada hopes, the NHL and NHLPA need to first confirm the return to the Olympics and then officially permit Olympic camps to be held this summer. There are still steps that need to be taken before Olympic fever can truly start to heat up ahead of next year’s games.
  • With the OHL still out of action and the WHL and QMJHL having shortened seasons, there are still efforts being made to help out NHL teams and CHL prospects alike. Dreger notes that the two leagues are working together to hold a “Top Prospects Event”, likely to be a small tournament, in early July before the 2021 NHL Draft. With this year’s draft staying put as scheduled, despite some discussion of a delay, both leagues want to do their best to make up for missed time for Canada’s top junior prospects with a chance for NHL teams to evaluate talent ahead of the draft. Planning for the event is still in its early stages, but Dreger reports that the league would like to replicate the Edmonton playoff bubble from last year for the pre-draft tournament, but will first need permission from the Albertan government. There is still clearly work to be done on these plans with not much time left, but all draft stakeholders stand to gain from the event taking place and the push will continue for as long as possible.

NHL Delays Canucks’ Return To Play

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4:10pm: The league has officially delayed the Canucks’ return to play, allowing additional time for recovery and preparation. They will not play Friday against the Oilers, and though the official release does not address the Saturday game against the Maple Leafs, Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic tweets that the expectation is that it will also be postponed.

2:20pm: The Vancouver Canucks haven’t played a game since March 24. They haven’t even really practiced during that time, with most of the team testing positive for coronavirus and quarantining for the last few weeks. Now, with players coming out of the protocol the team was expected to play a back-to-back on Friday-Saturday and fit the rest of their schedule—19 games—into just 31 days. Yesterday, J.T. Miller spoke up about the issue, telling reporters including Thomas Drance of The Athletic that what the Canucks were being asked to do isn’t safe, suggesting that even the players who did not contract the virus aren’t ready to compete at the NHL level.

Today, after medical and conditioning testing in the facility—a practice that was closed to the media at the last moment—it looks like at least one more game will be postponed to give the team some more time. Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet reports that the team will not play their Friday game against the Edmonton Oilers, though it is unclear whether Saturday’s matchup with the Toronto Maple Leafs is still a go.

At one point, the Canucks had basically their entire roster on the COVID Protocol list, with more than 20 positive test results in the organization. The team recalled 20-year-old goaltender Arturs Silovs–he of one game of professional experience–to the taxi squad along with Guillaume Brisebois yesterday in preparation for fielding an uncertain lineup.

Perhaps the most striking debate regarding the Canucks season is whether they need to play all 56 games at all. The team is now ten points back of the Montreal Canadiens for the final playoff spot in the North Division and seems unlikely to close that gap with such a condensed schedule (not to mention coming off such a long break). Games against the last-place Ottawa Senators for instance could potentially be chopped off the schedule, but it’s hard to decide just how to go about the rest of the games that could have playoff implications for the opponent. For instance, the Canucks have already played their full allotment of matches against the Montreal Canadiens, going 3-5-1 in the process. If the other playoff teams are not allowed to play their remaining games against one of the worst teams in the league, there could be some who feel the North Division standings are unfair, even if points percentage is used to determine seeding.

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