The Detroit News’s Ted Kulfan answers “burning questions” in a subscriber-only article today, and among his more interesting answers are the following:
What will [the NHL’s 2020-2021 season] look like? It’ll definitely be a shortened season, somewhere between 48 and 60 games, with the playoffs completed before the July Summer Olympics.
For this one season, the divisions will be realigned with a greater emphasis on geography, including an all-Canadian division because of the borders being closed.
Similar to Major League Baseball, the NHL is likely to go to a heavy, maybe exclusive, intra-division schedule, which could ignite some rivalries. And in Canada, that realignment should make fans go bonkers with excitement.
Who will be in the Wings’ division? There’s been so many guesses, so much speculation, but here’s another one.
How about the Wings in some sort of “Central Division” with Buffalo, Carolina, Columbus, Chicago, Nashville, Minnesota and Pittsburgh. Travel would be minimized, and some rivalries would be kept alive or reignited (Detroit-Chicago!).
But make no mistake: It’s going to be impossible to please every team and fan base, and difficult to evenly distribute these teams geographically.
Continued (paywall)
