With the stark difference in how Canada and the US have handled Covid-19 crisis, I've been wondering for a while if we could see a situation where all of the US teams are shut down before we reach the playoffs.
They're not bubbled, there are new strains of the virus down here that are more transmissible, and there is still massive community spread pretty much everywhere.
True - the vaccine is being rolled out, and millionaires will get it before regular people (not how it should be, just how it is in the US). But will it occur fast enough to allow teams in the US to play north of say 60% of the scheduled games?
Deadspin Article
Quote:
Because Canada wouldn’t acquiesce to teams criss-crossing the border and back without following that country’s quarantine rules, the league has an all-Canadian division this season. And isn’t it strange how that’s the only one where every team has played its full schedule? Curious, no?
The Colorado Avalanche became the fifth team currently to be put on pause yesterday, joining Buffalo, New Jersey, Vegas, and Minnesota. They’re the seventh team to have to sit out for a while thanks to COVID protocols, as Carolina and Dallas had to take a seat earlier in the year. The Avs spent the past week playing the WIld. The Wild just had five players go on the protocol list, and now the Avs have the same problems. This is exactly what happened with the Sabres and Devils. The NHL can claim it doesn’t have a team-to-team transmission problem all it likes. But the more it does, the more it sounds like Baghdad Bob.
Which begs the question: How the NHL can keep going?
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What is it going to look like at season end if the Canadian division has played all it's games, and there are teams south of the border that are at only 2/3rds?
The schedule is already compressed - are teams going to play make up games 3 in 3 nights? Is it fair to have a team with 10 fewer games in a season making the playoffs?
I don't have any answers. It feels like it's getting more and more bizarre though. I wouldn't be surprised to see the NHL reach a point in the next couple months where they make some hard choices.
Will Canada be the only division to finish the NHL this season?
