Season could resume with teams playing out of less than a handful of NHL arenas
League commissioner Gary Bettman spoke with Sportsnet Wednesday, and stated that the league is considering an option to finish the season with four NHL arenas being played in, hosting three games a day.
The NHL has been suspended since March the 12th due to the COVID-19 outbreak, and although the league has been trying to discuss ways to return to action, they have yet to come up with a plan. The plan Bettman spoke of Wednesday also included having no fans in attendance.
“Ideally from our standpoint – and it would resolve a lot of issues – would be if we could complete the regular season, even if it's on a centralized basis, and then go into the [Stanley Cup Playoffs] the way we normally play them.”
“That would be ideal. But that's, again, one of the numerous models we're looking at, and if we can't do ideal, if we can't do perfect, we're going to have to figure out what's next to perfect.”
Though at one point there were talks about having games in non-NHL arenas, that idea has since been shut down as everyone agreed those arenas are best equipped to handle its needs if it decides to centralize games.
Bettman also made it extremely clear that the number of cities hasn't been fully decided on yet either.
“Maybe it'll be two cities,” he said. “It's not something that we can predict right at this moment. But this is part of the contingencies. It doesn't necessarily have to be by division, although the centralization may be by division.
“But the particular location could be anywhere that isn't a hot spot and has what we need both in terms of the arena and having practice facilities, because if you bring in seven or eight clubs to a particular facility and you're playing lots of games on a regular basis without travel, there does need to be ice for practice.”
https://www.nhl.com/news/commissioner-gary-bettman-on-scenario-to-resume-nhl-season/c-316699898
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YESTERDAY
MAY 18, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Phillip Danault | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Greenway | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaiden Guhle | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Beck Malenstyn | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan McLeod | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Owen Power | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nick Suzuki | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zach Benson | - | - | - | |
| Bowen Byram | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||