On the surface, there are a hundred reasons why playing games in isolation would seem to make little sense. The safest and healthiest option for everyone involved would be for the league to simply wash its hands of the 2019-20 season and begin preparations for a full 82-game season in 2020-21.

There are a series of significant questions on how it would be possible to protect players, team staff, building staff and hotel staff. The cities involved would need to sign off on exempting the NHL from physical distancing rules that apply to the rest of the community and there would need to be agreements on how local health resources would be utilized to test players.

Yet if there’s any hope for the NHL to recoup some dollars from their enormous advertising and TV broadcast deals, the league isn’t going to quietly skate away without exploring any and all options.

-Ken Warren of the Ottawa Citizen. Read more on this topic.