The NHL is targeting a January 13th start date, which means the Toronto Maple Leafs may be playing hockey again soon.
The Toronto Maple Leafs have played five games in the past nine months, but that could all change in the next few weeks. According to TSN’s Darren Dreger and Pierre LeBrun, financials are no longer an issue and a 56-game season is on the horizon.
If you’ve been following along for the past few months, it’s been a very slow process. After finishing the 2019-20 season in a bubble, the NHL and NHLPA obviously didn’t want to go down that road again. Instead, they’ve been trying to come to a conclusion about how the season can be played safely in each home team’s arena.
It’s been incredibly discouraging following the NHL throughout this process because of how well the NBA has handled things. The Larry O’Brien Championship Trophy was awarded after the Stanley Cup was presented, but the NBA will still be returning to work earlier than the NHL. In fact, teams are already in training camp, with exhibition games scheduled to start next week.
I know the NHL is a much smaller league than the NBA, but I hoped that we would have saw an answer from the NHL immediately after the NBA announced theirs. Instead, the NHL and NHLPA went silent without any expectation of a start date. Gary Bettman kept saying that they wanted to start by January 1st, but that start-date went out the window weeks ago.
Thank goodness the two sides seem aligned now and the season can start relatively soon.
What Does This Mean For the Toronto Maple Leafs?
If you love watching the Toronto Maple Leafs play other Canadian teams, then you’re in luck. If the NHL starts on January 13th, we’re bound to see an “All-Canadian Division” featuring: Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, Montreal Canadiens, Ottawa Senators, Toronto Maple Leafs, Vancouver Canucks and Winnipeg Jets.
Both sides targeting Jan. 13 start to season in order to get 56-game sked but even with financials no longer an issue as @DarrenDreger first reported, still some work to be done on protocols, schedule, critical date, etc, plus subject to NHL BOG and NHLPA executive board approval https://t.co/ESSjY94Slt
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) December 8, 2020
Based on the boarder-restrictions and the quarantine protocols, it would make sense to have all seven Canadian teams face each other to start the regular season. Similar to how the NBA constructed it’s schedule in two halves, I would expect the NHL to follow suit. Therefore, you should expect to see a schedule that consists of the first 28 games and then the NHL can figure out if the Canadian teams can travel to the USA and vice versa.
It may get a little stale watching the Leafs play the same six teams, but every team has a few great players that’ll be fun to watch:
- Calgary Flames: Sean Monahan, Matthew Tkachuk, Johnny Gaudreau
- Former Leafs to watch: Josh Leivo
- Edmonton Oilers: Connor McDavid, Leon Draisaitl
- Former Leafs to watch: Tyler Ennis, Tyson Barrie
- Montreal Canadiens: Carey Price, Shea Weber, Brendan Gallagher
- Former Leafs to watch: N/A
- Ottawa Senators: Brady Tkachuk, Thomas Chabot
- Former Leafs to watch: Connor Brown, Nikita Zaitsev
- Vancouver Canucks: Elias Pettersson, Bo Horvat, Quinn Hughes, Brock Boeser
- Former Leafs to watch: N/A
- Winnipeg Jets: Patrik Laine, Blake Wheeler, Mark Scheifele, Connor Hellebuyck
- Former Leafs to watch: N/A
If you thought the Leafs rivalry with Ottawa and Montreal was fun to watch before, just wait. If these teams are going to have to play each other every week, they’re going to absolutely hate each other by the end of it and that’ll be incredibly entertaining.