New York Rangers training camp target date announced

The New York Rangers postseason training camp could open as early as July 10

The announcement was short and sweet.  Phase Three of the Return to Play Plan is scheduled to begin on Friday, July 10.   That means that all of the players that the New York Rangers will invite to their “training camp” for the postseason will have to be in place in four weeks.

There are provisions concerning medical and safety conditions, but the agreement on the date was the first hurdle for both the NHLPA and the league.   Here is the full release from the NHL:

"“The National Hockey League Players’Association (NHLPA) and the National Hockey League (NHL) announced today that formal training camps (Phase 3) for the 24 teams resuming play will open on Friday, July 10, provided that medical and safety conditions allow and the parties have reached an overall agreement on resuming play.  The length of training camp and, therefore, the start date for formal resumption of play (Phase 4) will  be determined at a future date.”"

What this announcement means is that the Rangers have to officially decide who they will bring to camp and for those players, travel plans will have to be made.  There are currently travel restrictions between Canada and the United States as well as Europe and the USA and the teams will have to unwind those complications in order to get their rosters in place.

The one thing that European based players will want to avoid is any type of quarantine when they return to North America.  Most, if not all of them have been skating and working out, long before it was permitted in the USA and to be forced into 14 day of inactivity would be a problem.

There has been a mixed reaction to the opening of Phase Two.  While a handful of players have begun the informal workouts, the players in Europe are not rushing back and players elsewhere in the United States are not returning either.

Igor Shesterkin is in Florida and is working out with a number of other players including Alex Ovechkin.

One reason is that if they are working out on their own, they are clearly not required to maintain the six player limit, nor maintain social distancing restrictions.

While there are international travel restrictions, there are also conditions when it comes to mode of travel, domestic or international.  Under the return to play protocol released by the NHL on May 24, any players returning on public transportation would have to serve a mandatory 14 day quarantine period.

It’s very possible that the Rangers could arrange a charter flight for players from Europe to return the the United States, since most of them are in Scandinavia.  How players like Pavel Buchnevich or Vitali Kravtsov (if invited) get back from Russia is another question entirely.  Charter flights are exempt from the public transportation rules so it would be a way to get Mika Zibanejad, Kaapo Kakko, Henrik Lundqvist and Alexandar Georgiev among others, back to practice without the need for quarantine.

Caveats

It’s important to note that July 10 is a target date.  It was a date that had to be set in order for teams to prepare for training camps and it gives them a month to get ready.  This announcement will be sure to be followed by an extensive health safety protocol that will spell out any testing regimen and measures that team will have to take if players test positive.

It’s also important to note that there was no time frame established for Phase Four (resumption of play).  The latest word is that there will actually be a few “exhibition” games between teams as a warm up before the real games begin.  That will be followed by the best-of-five qualifying round for 16 teams along with the round robin for the top eight teams in the NHL.  After that, we will see the Stanley Cup Playoffs in their traditional format of four best-of-seven series.

With the Phase Three announcement, there should be a lot more information coming from the NHL as they try to jump start the resumption of the season.  There has been no word about which two cities will be chosen to be the hub cities for all postseason play.