NHL playoffs will stay best-of-seven, but with reseeding after each round

The NHL’s return-to-play plan came into sharper focus Thursday.

If the league is able to resume this summer, the playoffs will feature the traditional four rounds of best-of-seven series, after an added qualifying portion.

The NHL announced the 24-team format last week, but had yet to iron out some specifics, including the length of the first two rounds.

Also, teams will be reseeded after each playoff round. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said last week that the league favoured a bracket, which has been in place since 2014. The players, however, made the case that reseeding would be more fair this year and won out.

The return blueprint — which will eventually require the approval of health and government officials to get off the ground, in two hub cities to be announced — would begin with separate, three-game round-robin tournaments for the top four clubs in both the Eastern and Western Conference. The league said any ties at the end of round-robin play will be broken by regular-season points percentage.

The other teams would take part in eight best-of-five qualifying series, leaving the NHL with the usual 16-team playoff field.

Maple Leafs captain John Tavares, who was a member of the NHL/NHLPA Return to Play committee, said last week that players were intent on making sure there’s no asterisk if a team eventually lifts the Stanley Cup at the end of the season.

“Anyone who gets their name on it wants to earn it,” he said. “I think it’s going to be a very worthy and deserving Stanley Cup champion.”

Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington and Philadelphia would compete for the No. 1 slot in the East under the plan, while defending champion St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas and Dallas would play in the West.

The East’s best-of-five qualifying or play-in series would see No. 5 Pittsburgh vs. No. 12 Montreal, No. 6 Carolina vs. No. 11 New York Rangers, No. 7 New York Islanders vs. No. 10 Florida and No. 8 Toronto vs. No. 9 Columbus.

In the West, the best-of-five matchups are No. 5 Edmonton vs. No. 12 Chicago, No. 6 Nashville vs. No. 11 Arizona, No. 7 Vancouver vs. No. 10 Minnesota and No. 8 Calgary vs. No. 9 Winnipeg.

The league, which paused its schedule in March because of COVID-19 and declared the regular season over last week, is hoping to move to the second phase of its return-to-play protocol later this month. That would see practice facilities opened to small groups of players for on- and off-ice workouts under strict health and safety restrictions.

The hope is that teams will be able to hold training camps (phase three) some time in July before resuming play either later that month or in early August (phase four).

Buffalo, New Jersey, Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose, Ottawa and Detroit each saw their seasons end last week. It’s possible those seven teams might not play another meaningful game until early January.

The Stanley Cup has been awarded every year since 1893 except 1919 (Spanish flu outbreak) and 2005 (lockout, season cancelled).

“It’s hard to make everyone happy, and I feel this is the best scenario for the league and for the players to get as many teams involved,” Calgary Flames forward Mikael Backlund said of the return-to-play plan Thursday. “It’s kind of only two teams (Montreal and Chicago) that get a free card here. All the rest of the teams were in the race. It would have been harder to just go 16 teams where 22 teams probably had a chance to make it.

“The five games to start is probably a good idea, too. It could go fast if you struggle early in three games.”

While the announcement Thursday was another step in the process, there’s remains plenty of work to do before resuming a season that could now stretch into October.

Apart from choosing two hub cities — Vancouver, Edmonton and Toronto are among 10 markets in the running — testing capacity, safety and whether or not players will be quarantined away from family for two months or more are among the issues that still to be addressed.

The NHL has said it will require up to 30,000 COVID-19 tests for players, adding that a positive result wouldn’t necessarily derail the 24-team format.

On Thursday, the Pittsburgh Penguins announced that an unidentified player had tested positive for the coronavirus and recovered.