NHL may push back start of next season by two months

If you like your hockey season to start in October, there's bad news. According to TSN Insider Pierre LeBrun, the NHL is seriously considering delaying the start of the 2020-21 season until December.

As I hinted near the bottom of my column last Friday, the idea of delaying next season's start until December has indeed been discussed by the NHL with its teams as a possibility, multiple sources around the league confirmed.

The kicker is that the league still hopes to cram in a full 82-game season, even with a December start.

Which would mean – as with the November start scenario – wiping out All-Star weekend, the bye weeks, shortening the Christmas holiday break and basically tightening the entire schedule matrix wherever possible. The result would push the regular season into May and playoffs into July.
According to LeBrun's column, there are two reasons for this. This first is the length of time the NHL is willing to take to complete the 2019-20 season. At this point in time, he reports the league is willing to go into September in order to get it done. The other big reason is many teams feel they need fans back at arenas before games can start and that's not likely to happen any time soon. LeBrun states most teams are fine with completing this season in empty arenas, but adds some organization are stating they would lose less money with no hockey at all rather than games without fans for next season.

LeBrun also says some teams have suggested that a January start for next season might be the best possible time, but a league official told him that would be pushing it.

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