from Frank Seravalli of TSN,

The National Hockey League is keeping track of the local government restrictions impacting each of its 31 clubs by way of a master chart.

It’s one that deputy commissioner Bill Daly says is “dynamic and changes virtually every day.”

The NHL’s two Ontario-based teams – the Toronto Maple Leafs and Ottawa Senators – moved into the clear on the league’s chart on Friday, when Minister of Heritage, Sport, Tourism and Culture Industries Lisa MacLeod announced that all professional teams in the province are permitted to reopen their respective practice facilities.

But that doesn’t change anything for the Leafs, Sens or the NHL as whole because the league has not allowed teams to progress to Phase 2 of its return-to-play protocol, which calls for teams to open facilities for players to train in small groups.

The NHL still hopes to move to Phase 2 in the “mid-to-later portion of May,” as stated to teams in a league-wide memo last week, but that will be subject to “potential competitive concerns between disparately situation markets.”

In other words, the NHL doesn’t plan to take the next step until a fair majority of its clubs will be permitted to open their facilities to avoid a competitive imbalance.

continued