If and when the NHL resumes the regular season, it’s already abundantly clear that it won’t be a straightforward continuance of what took place between Oct. 2, 2019 and March 11, 2020.
All those games that were played before the league suspended play, and all those narratives and storylines, will essentially be a memory. Null and void.
What you’ll get — if the COVID-19 situation allows the season to resume at all — is essentially a brand new, truncated season followed by the playoffs. Instead of the regular season and a “second” season, you’ll effectively have a first season, a second season and a third season.
Happily, there is no particular number of games that make up a bona fide NHL season. In the post-expansion era, the league has played 74, 76, 78, 80, 84, 48 and 82 games, with the Stanley Cup awarded in every one of those campaigns. The NHL could, in theory, also simply declare the 2019-20 season over, with teams having played between 68 and 71 games.
We’ll wait to see what formula they come up with. But no matter the scheme, it will be different than what was happening until last Thursday. Yes, the rosters will be the same, but after a period of no activity there will almost certainly be some preliminary training in small groups, and then an official training camp before games are played again.
Some players will still be fit. Others won’t, although you aren’t likely going to have anyone showing up 25 pounds overweight like Keith Tkachuk did after the 2004-05 lockout.
Some players will have healed from injuries. Steven Stamkos may be healthy and ready to go again by the time NHL competition restarts. Some players, we can guess, might have even tested positive for the coronavirus and become ill.
So this won’t be like the only other notable mid-season interruption in NHL history, the 1992 player strike. That lasted 10 days. This will be like a brand new season.
So it’s worthwhile to take a snapshot of all that happened before the games stopped. Exactly what kind of an NHL season were we witnessing?
The Maple Leafs, having fired one of the most successful NHL coaches in recent history and replaced him with rookie coach Sheldon Keefe, have been up and down like the stock market since the fall. It’s no surprise, really, when you have an inexperienced GM, an inexperienced coach and most of your core players without a great deal of NHL games under their belts and very few playoff scars.
That said, the Leafs were headed for a 95-point season and were in a playoff position when the season stopped. Auston Matthews was on pace to score the most goals ever by a Leaf player. William Nylander was having his best NHL season by far.
So it’s not been quite as dark as many would suggest.
Toronto’s all-offence, occasional-defence style was a very different approach than most of the teams at the top of the NHL. Of the top seven, only No. 5 Washington had surrendered more than 200 goals, while the Leafs had given up 227. Boston, a Cup finalist last year, was decisively the best club until Gary Bettman called a halt to the season. The biggest surprises have been Colorado, with the NHL’s third-best record, and Philadelphia, sixth overall.
The biggest disappointment has been Arizona, which was first in its division when Taylor Hall was acquired in a big deal with New Jersey and now sits 22nd overall. Folks in Montreal might say the Canadiens have disappointed, but even the most optimistic Habs fans figured they weren’t going to be any good.
The entire state of California, once home to a strong trio of teams, is now home to the 27th-, 28th- and 29th-place clubs. Anaheim, San Jose and Los Angeles have all fallen on hard times. They’re still better than terrible Ottawa and dreadful Detroit, with the Red Wings on pace for a ridiculously bad 45 points this season. Seven other teams, by the way, joined the Leafs in firing their coach this season, including the controversial dismissal of Calgary’s Bill Peters.
The prize in the draft remains Alexis Lafrenière of the Rimouski Oceanic, who had 112 points in 52 games before the Canadian Hockey League suspended the seasons of all three major junior leagues.
The best player in the league? Leon Draisaitl of the Oilers. The best defenceman? John Carlson. The top rookie? Quinn Hughes, with Cale Makar breathing down his neck. The best goaltender? Tuukka Rask, at least partly because he has such an able backup in Jaroslav Halak.
Coach of the year would likely come down to either Bruce Cassidy or Jared Bednar, with Alain Vigneault in the conversation.
Scoring has hovered around 6.1 goals per game, up slightly. In terms of attendance, 27 of 31 teams have played to 90 per cent of capacity or more. The league is packed so tightly, it’s hard to say who would have emerged as the final four. The guess here would be Boston-Washington and Colorado-Vegas.
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So that was the season that was. How this all translates into what comes next is anyone’s guess, because we don’t know what comes next. But the NHL and its teams and its stars won’t be able to simply pick up where they left off. The break is going to be too significant, and some things will have changed.
Will the Bruins still be the best? Will Draisaitl power the Oilers into the playoffs? Will the break help or hurt the young Leafs? Will the Red Wings bother to return at all?
The results of the longest interruption ever in an NHL season will be fascinating to watch. That’s if we see hockey again before the fall.
