from Larry Brooks of the New York Post,

Front offices across the NHL are constructing rosters within flat-cap and internally imposed budgetary restraints for a regular season that will be unlike any that have come before. We don’t know when the season will start, though the league and the NHLPA have agreed on a target date of Jan. 1. We don’t know whether travel restrictions between the United States and Canada will be relaxed for the NHL. We don’t know anything.

The league, primarily through commissioner Gary Bettman, is talking about having a full 82-game schedule, but just about everyone in the industry is expecting a season of between 60 and 68 games that will begin later than the target date. The NHL has been nothing but flexible in its response to the pandemic. The league and the NHLPA should maintain that approach regarding 2021-22.

Unless there is assurance from those in authority that teams will be accorded free transit across the border, the NHL will have to realign and create an all-Canadian conference in which the seven teams north of the border compete amongst themselves. It is easy creating that subset. Designing three other conferences based on geography to limit travel is not so easy, because a handful of teams are always going to be isolated.

Beyond the Canadian conference, Slap Shots has established one eight-team conference, one nine-team conference and another seven-team conference. It is probably not ideal, but here’s a preliminary look:

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