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COVID-19 Outbreak In Edmonton Hospital Doesn’t Alter NHL Plans

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All services have been closed to the public at Edmonton’s Misericordia Hospital after a COVID-19 outbreak left 20 patients and 15 staff members infected, per Nicole Bergot of the Edmonton Journal. Edmonton, of course, is prepared to be one of the NHL’s hub cities as play resumes on August 1.

The NHL and NHLPA have seemingly put together an amazing week of work to find common ground in the hopes of returning to play – and as of right now, this outbreak doesn’t change the NHL’s plans, per Jason Kay of the Hockey News. These playoffs – should they happen – will be unlike anything the NHL has orchestrated in recent years.

To briefly recap: the 5 through 12 seeds in each conference are preparing for head-to-head five-game series on neutral ice that will determine the final four playoff competitors in each conference. Though the stakes are as high or maybe higher than a traditional NHL playoff series, the scope and logistics are much different.

For starters, there’s the simple fact that after a long layoff, players are jumping right into an elimination round. They are trying to work themselves back into game shape in the most unique environment they’ve likely ever played. Facing potential separation from their families and the constant fear of contracting coronavirus, the “it’s only a game” idiom no longer holds true. On the other hand, assuming most players can “get back to it” without setbacks – a huge assumption – it’s the same game these players have played their entire lives.

Still, to jump right into a five-game elimination round (as opposed to the typical seven-game playoff) could set the stage for even more parity than in most years. Not only will teams have less room for error, but top seeds have lost the advantage of home ice. Broadly-speaking, this lowers their probability of surviving any given game from 55 percent to an even 50-50 split, per TSN’s Travis Yost.

The Edmonton Oilers are one of two squads who will get to play on their home ice. And while there won’t be any fans allowed in the stadium, the organization is still exploring ways to capture a modicum of home-ice advantage elsewhere in the city, writes Terry Jones of the Edmonton Sun. Given the risks of gathering any large crowds, it’s hard to imagine the Oilers pulling this off in any substantive way – especially after news of this most recent outbreak.

Still, coronavirus isn’t going away, and outbreaks of some variety are to be expected. If Edmonton gets a handle on this situation, it might provide the league with even more confidence in its viability as a hub city.

Chris Pronger Leaves Front Office Role With Florida Panthers

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Chris Pronger has left his role with the front office of the Florida Panthers, the team announced. Pronger had been the senior VP of hockey operations, notes Stephen Whyno of the Associated Press. He’s been in the role since June of 2017 after three years of working for the NHL in the Department of Player Safety.

Pronger made his NHL debut in 1993-1994, playing for 18 years with the Hartford Whalers, Blues, Oilers, Ducks, and Flyers. The Hall-of-Famer was a four-time All-Star and the winner of the Norris and Hart Trophies after a monster 1999-2000 season with the Blues in which he put up 62 points and a league-leading plus-52 while on the ice. He also averaged a brutal 30 minutes and 14 seconds of ice time that year. Pronger would win his only cup in 2006-2007, the first of a three-year tenure with the Anaheim Ducks. The hulking defenseman retired after the 2011-2012 season.

The decision to leave his role with the Panthers appears to be Pronger’s. He’s leaving to launch Well Inspired Plans, a travel agency he’s heading up with his wife, per Adam Kimelman of NHL.com. The Panthers thanked Pronger for his contributions in their statement, writing: “…Chris approached the role with great passion and provided our team with a fresh and unique perspective…”

NHL Players Grappling With Monday’s Opt-Out Deadline

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NHL players will have three extra days to decide whether or not to play in the 24-team playoff that begins on August 1, per Adrian Dater of Colorado Hockey Now. Anyone opting out will have to do so before Monday night.

But don’t expect a whole host of skaters to sit this one out, writes The Athletic’s Scott Burnside. Families being allowed into hub cities starting with the conference championships have allayed some concerns, but there are still players with pregnant wives and pre-existing conditions who must think twice before putting themselves at risk.

One general manager, speaking anonymously, posited that there was a good chunk of NHL players who do not prefer to return to play under these conditions, per Burnside. This is a refrain we’ve heard numerous times in recent weeks, but always anonymously. That fact alone speaks to the complicated cultural hurdles facing the NHL. The option of opting out is always couched in this idea that NHL’s culture of toughness won’t allow for abstainers.

The Columbus Blue Jackets, for one, don’t expect anyone to opt-out, but that doesn’t mean it’s an automatic call, writes The Athletic’s Aaron Portzline. Portzline spells out the dilemma facing Nick Foligno to give a sense of the types of decisions players are dealing with: “He’s the Blue Jackets’ captain, so he has an enormous responsibility within the dressing room. But he’s also the father of a child with a pre-existing condition. His daughter, Milana, was born with a congenital heart defect and has had multiple surgeries. That makes her more vulnerable to the COVID-19 virus.”

The league itself does not require players to cite any specific reason for opting out. Given the culture of the NHL, however, it seems that any player who makes that choice will be scrutinized. And yet, that’s not the same as being stigmatized – and that’s an important distinction. There’s a lot of understanding in the league right now, and given the absolute dangers of COVID-19, players and coaches alike realize that the decision to play – or not to play – is deeply personal.

Minnesota Wild Prospect Alex Khovanov Heading To KHL

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Minnesota Wild prospect Alex Khovanov was granted permission to spend next season in the KHL, per The Athletic’s Michael Russo. The 20-year-old center was rumored to be on his way to Ak Bars Kazan last month, but the Wild were said to still be discussing the best route for Khovanov’s development.

The Russian lefty was a third-round pick of the Wild in the 2018 draft. The 86th overall selection signed officially with Minnesota last March, but injuries have slowed his development. He was held out of the NHL Prospect Tournament last year after having a benign tumor surgically removed from his left leg.

Regardless, the ceiling is high for Khovanov. He potted 32 goals while finishing his junior career in QMJHL Moncton. He wrapped up the 2019-2020 campaign with an impressive 99 points in just 51 games.

With an uncertain start date for next year’s AHL season, the hope here is that a delayed NHL season in 2020-2021 will allow Khovanov to get a full season of reps while in Russia and still return sometime mid-year to join the AHL, if not the Wild.

If he does indeed come back mid-season, Khovanov will use up the first year of his Entry-Level Contract at that time. For the Wild, if he gets a full season of development time in the KHL, that’s well worth the cost of burning the first year of his ECL, even if he only gets a partial season stateside.

Snapshots: NHLPA Executive Board Approves CBA, DEL, LeBlanc, Stutzle

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The NHL and NHLPA have crossed another hurdle to ratifying their CBA extension, the NHLPA announced. The NHL’s Executive Board has approved of the extended CBA and sent it to the NHLPA membership for a vote. The full body of NHL players still needs to cast their ballots, which is expected to take place sometime over the next 48 hours. Only a simple majority is needed to pass, per Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman. As we await the final vote, let’s check-in elsewhere around the NHL…

  • Former Chicago Blackhawks prospect Drew LeBlanc signed a two-year extension to stay with Augsburger Panther of the Deutsche Eishockey Liga, per NHL.com’s Brandon Cain. LeBlanc appeared in two games with the Blackhawks in 2012-2013 and last appeared stateside with the AHL’s Ice Hogs in 2014-2015. He’s carved out a role in Germany over the last five years, scoring exactly 11 goals in the last four. He posted a career-high 49 points last season for Augsburger.
  • Speaking of the DEL, top draft prospect Tim Stutzle put up 34 points (7 goals, 27 assists) for Adler Mannheim last season, a strong enough showing to put him in the running to become the highest-drafted German prospect ever (Leon Draisaitl went number 3 overall to the Oilers in 2014). As a consensus top-5 prospect, Stutzle – who has drawn comparisons to Patrick Kane for his offensive creativity – could go as high as number two to the Los Angeles Kings, who may understand Stutzle’s path better than most, writes The Athletic’s Lisa Dillman.
  • Kings’ assistant coach Marco Sturm took a similar path on his way to the San Jose Sharks in 1997-1998. Sturm ought to be able to help connect the Kings’ to whatever intel they need on Stutzle. Most pundits suggest the Kings’ choice will come down to Stutzle or Quinton Byfield, though Jamie Drysdale could be in the running as well, which Dillman wrote about in-depth here.

 

Details On The Daily Scheduling Of Postseason Games

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With training camps set to open shortly, the idea of live hockey is beginning to seem like more of a reality. While the players still must officially vote to approve the return to play plans, the NHL is all but ready to start the action on August 1st. With details of the qualifying round rules, round robin games for top seeds, and the subsequent playoff structure all hammered out, there are very few questions remaining. Thanks to TSN’s Bob McKenzie, one of those unanswered questions is also no more: how so many games will be played in so short a time in just two locations.

According to McKenzie, the plan is to play three games a day at each of the hub locations, Toronto and Edmonton, for a total of six game. This will include both qualifying round games and round robin seeding games. These games will be held at the same times – 12pm, 4pm, and 8pm – but offset by the two-hour time difference local time. On the east coast, this means games will be on at noon, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 8pm, and 10pm, while on the west coast things will get started a little earlier with games at 9am, 11am, 1pm, 3pm, 5pm, and 7pm. As McKenzie points out, the possibility of extended overtimes in the qualifying round games could complicate this scheduling, but the league hopes to mitigate these risks by playing round robin games, which have regular season OT rules, during the 4pm slots to counteract early games that ran late and ensure prime time games start on time (or at least close to it).

At first glance, the amount of hockey that could be on display later this summer is exciting for fans who have been without the game for close to four months now. There will certainly be logistical issues with the scheduling of games and extended overtimes, but fans should be flexible with their schedules given the affect that COVID-19 has had on typical summer plans. This should also extend to days games, with many people around North America still working from home and able to watch games that typically they might find themselves in the office during. While the Pacific time zone definitely received the worst deal in terms of the daily schedules, it is worth noting that only the Vancouver Canucks and Vegas Golden Knights call that time zone home among 2020 playoff teams, while 75% of the field resides in the Eastern or Central time zones.

Hypothetically, this scheduling plan through the qualifying round and round robin games, a minimum of 44 games and maximum of 68 games, should mean that those series are over and the standard playoff structure is set in no more than 12 days. It may not be pretty cramming so much action into such a short time frame, but if the league sticks to six games a day they will be able to commence with the standard postseason by August 13. This should allow them to complete the postseason, award the Stanley Cup, and even host the 2020 NHL Draft before November 1, which has been proposed as the opening of free agency for the 2020-21 season.

NHL, NHLPA Reach CBA Extension

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The NHL and NHLPA have a tentative agreement in place for the memorandum of understanding on the CBA, per TSN’s Bob McKenzie. The NHL and NHLPA have both announced the deal.

The owners and the players must ratify the agreement with a vote, but this is definitely trending in a positive direction. Ratification could happen as soon as the end of this week, but there is no set deadline, per McKenzie. Per the agreement, Phase 3 will begin as planned on July 13, followed by travel to hub cities on July 26 and the beginning of play on August 1.

The full press release from the NHLPA reads as follows: “The National Hockey League (NHL) and National Hockey League Players’ Association (NHLPA) have reached a tentative agreement on a Return to Play Plan and Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) that adds an additional four years to the term of the current Collective Bargaining Agreement and includes transition rules and a new critical dates calendar. As part of the tentative agreement, the following dates have been established: July 13  start of formal training camps; July 26  Clubs travel to hub cities; August 1  start of Qualifying Round. The tentative agreement is now subject to approval by the NHL’s Board of Governors, as well as the NHLPA’s Executive Board followed by the full NHLPA membership. The respective review and approval processes will take place over the next few days and there will be no further comment until those processes are completed.”

Given the troubled history between these two sides, that they could come to an agreement without a work stoppage under these rushed and dynamic conditions speaks volumes. The extended CBA will now expire on September 15, 2026, per NHL.com.  There are still plenty of hurdles ahead before August 1, but for now, it appears that the NHL will return in less than a month’s time.

Prospect Notes: Cozens, Harvard, Beniers, Kings

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The future is bright for the Wild, Flyers, Senators, and Kings, per The Athletic’s Scott Wheeler. Each of those four clubs tied for the lead with four prospects making Wheeler’s top-50 list, headlined by Dylan Cozens of the Sabres in the top spot. The same can’t be said for the Lightning, Blue Jackets, Jets, Blackhawks, and Bruins, all of whom failed to register a single prospect on the list. Wheeler qualifies the case for the Jets and Blue Jackets as each had a pair of prospects close to making the list, and the Blackhawks, who have recently graduated players like Adam Boqvist and Kirby Dach, while blueliner Ian Mitchell garnered consideration.

  • As if tracking NHL prospects isn’t artful enough, it’s going to get a whole lot more complicated as college athletics tries to find its way amid the coronavirus pandemic. Harvard released a statement today announcing all classes will be offered online and on-campus students will be capped at 40% of the student body. Athletics are going to be impacted, but it’s not yet clear what kind of season, if any, college hockey will have in 2020-2021. As ESPN’s Chris Peters points out, that’s going to affect the next couple of drafts, as Harvard alone had a number of potential draft prospects, including potential first-rounder Matt Beniers.
  • The Los Angeles Kings have a big decision looming after winning the number two overall pick in next year’s draft. Of course, they have plenty of time to study their options, writes Jack Harris of the Los Angeles Times. With an uncertain picture of next season, the draft presents the Kings with their largest dose of certainty. The top pick is going to be Alexis Lafreniere, leaving VP and GM Rob Blake with his pick of the rest. Harris provides a quote from Blake, who said: “You can narrow it down to three or four players where you’re really starting to zero in, instead of a group. But you’re going to review all the prep you did leading up to this one more time to have it fresh on your mind.” In addition, the Kings have three second-round picks and a pair each in the third and fourth round. Of course, though the Kings know when in the draft they’ll pick, they still don’t know when the draft will take place.

Latest On Impact Of Coronavirus On NHL, CBA Talks

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With the NHL’s report today announcing 23 confirmed cases of coronavirus out of the 396 players in camp, data points are emerging that might reveal the NHL’s risk tolerance as it returns to play. Still, we remain in the dark about what it would take to shut the whole thing down, per the Athletic’s Justin Bourne. Presumably, so long as the integrity of the competition remains intact, games will go on – the adjudication of that line provides a ton of interpretability, however. It’s rote for teams to lose a player or two before the playoffs due to injury, but there would never be a threshold for cancellation prior to coronavirus. Terms of a shutdown are said to have been defined in the recent agreement between the NHL and NHLPA, even if we don’t yet know its definition. More from Bourne and elsewhere around the NHL:

  • Bourne adds an interesting wrinkle, noting that with so many players from the Toronto area, the threat of breaking the bubble is greater in Toronto where family and friends are the temptations versus the alluring entertainment options of, say, Vegas. It’s nice to think that all players and staff will adhere to the strict rules of the hub quarantine, it’s also likely unrealistic.
  • Bourne also touches on some details of the proposed CBA. With the help of The Athletic’s Jonathan Willis, Bourne notes that entry-level contracts are expected to see a bump in pay, a surprising evolution that obviously benefits young players in a strictly financial sense. But the pay increase may also incentivize teams to prioritize veterans on minimum deals over a max ELC prospect. The balance between paying young players an acceptable wage and washing out the market for minimum-wage vets is a complicated relationship in all sports, but if the proposed increase holds, NHL clubs could find increased value in a minimum-price veteran.
  • NHL Players have until next Tuesday, July 13th (the start of Phase 3) to opt-out of the 24-team playoff, veteran NHL writer John Shannon reminds us. A number of players in the NBA and MLB have chosen to opt-out of the season, but we haven’t heard as much of those rumblings from the NHL. It’s been presupposed that the culture of toughness would attach a stigma to players electing not to play, but we should find out for sure within the next week.
  • Shannon also notes that Oiler’s owner Daryl Katz played a key role in moving the NHL’s hub location from Las Vegas to Edmonton (via Twitter). Katz spoke to the NHL Board about the safety benefits of hosting play in Edmonton, and he was apparently convincing. The surging number of coronavirus cases in Nevada surely played a role as well.

Oilers Notes: Maksimov, Green

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Prospect winger Kirill Maksimov has the opportunity to develop into a potent offensive weapon down the line for the Edmonton Oilers, but he’ll need the right situation to do so, per David Staples of the Edmonton Journal. Maksimov, 21, put up 13 points in 53 games for the AHL’s Bakersfield Condors before the shutdown this season. On his potential moving forward, Staples writes: “Maksimov is never going to be a big driver of the play. He is a true complimentary winger, who thrives with playmaking centres capable of getting him the puck while he finds open spots on the ice. He does have quick hands and underrated playmaking ability, but needs that speedy and/or skilled pivot on his line who can push the pace. Basically, he’s the type of player who plays better with better talent around him.” Luckily for Maksimov, he plays for an organization with no current shortage of star players. Speaking of, let’s check in on the Oilers and their plans for the Stanley Cup Qualifier showdown with the Blackhawks…

  • The Oilers are the heavy favorites to advance past the Blackhawks to the Western Conference playoffs after a .585 points percentage during the season. Chicago has an interesting mix of been-there-done-that veterans and undercooked up-and-comers, but they were the last team added to the play-in round and haven’t shown a consistent enough approach to tackle the star-studded Oilers. Edmonton, meanwhile, figures to be fully healthy with defenseman Mike Green the only key injury after an MCL sprain knocked out the veteran blueliner. Green expects to be ready to join Kris Russell on the Oiler’s third pairing, per Tracey Myers of NHL.com.
  • Green played just two games with the Oilers after being acquired from Detroit in late February. Paired with a veteran like Russell, there would be less concern about finding the right working chemistry, but the Oilers have depth options if Green proves unready. Matt Benning is in his fourth season with the team, and youngsters Caleb Jones and William Lagesson also saw ice time this year. All things being equal, however, Green figures to be the guy on the ice. Green has appeared in 76 career playoff games with the Washington Capitals and Detroit Red Wings, putting up a noteworthy 37 points (10 goals, 37 assists) over that span. Green will be an unrestricted free agent at season’s end.

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