Report: NHL looking to maintain 82-game season in 2020-21

This morning on Twitter, TSN’s Pierre LeBrun posted a short tweet thread to regarding a couple of items from his interview with deputy commissioner Bill Daly regarding the future of the NHL. According to LeBrun, the league is still trying to make this year’s playoffs in some capacity while also looking towards the 2020-21 season.

So far this week, both the NHL and players have tabled a couple of different ideas on what the rest of the 2019-20 season (including playoffs) might look like, and today, we heard a little bit about some of the NHL’s plans for next season. In the interview with LeBrun, Bill Daly expressed that the league’s current goal, regardless of what happens with the 2019-20 season, is to have an uninterrupted 82-game schedule for next year. Whether or not that’s possible remains unclear at this time, especially if there is still hope left to be able to finish up the current season at some point in the summer.

There is no doubt that the league is doing what they can to exhaust all options for awarding a Stanley Cup for the 2019-20 season, it’s also very apparent that they want to play 82 games in 2020-21 as well. It’s clear the COVID-19 pandemic will have lasting impacts, and it’s hard to say when this virus will truly be under control and what the world will look like when that occurs, making it difficult for the league when they’re trying to come up with solutions. More important than all of that is the health of the world over these next six months and beyond.