Lots of questions about next season starting on time

Don’t be fooled by the NHL’s successful return to play, the league and the New York Rangers face many challenges

The NHL is currently reveling in their successful return to play.  All of their COVID-19 tests have come back negative, the games have not lost any competitive edge and the televised games have the feel of that is typical of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.  The New York Rangers expect to be back together sometime in November, aiming for a December start to their season, but don’t be so sure.

According to a source with connections to the NHL, there is a lot of concern that the 2020-21 season will not begin until we are well into the 2021 new year.  The league is not willing to start a season with no fans in the seats and without any mitigation of the pandemic, it’s not likely that that will be possible for many months. Though the NHL and NHLPA had et a tentative date for the start of the season as December 1, the odds are that the season will not start on that date.

Emily Kaplan and Greg Wyshynski of ESPN put together a very complete prognosis for next season with numerous different scenarios.  They range from a ramping up of the number of fans allowed into arenas starting with a minimal number and building to as many as 50% and then 90% attendance.

While Commissioner Gary Bettman has been insistent that the NHL will play a full 82 game season, if they don’t begin play until January or February, they will be hard pressed to play as many as 60 games.   There had been speculation that the NHL was leaning toward a season schedule that skewed later with the playoffs ending in the summer, but the league has not seen the television ratings bonanza that they had hoped for.

The good news is that the first game of the Bruins-Lightning Second Round series was the most watched Second Round game in five years, but it also benefited from being played on a Sunday night in prime time.  The bad news is the telecast of the first game of the Stars-Avalanche Second Round Series was the lowest rated prime time hockey telecast ever.

Television ratings are not going to be the cash cow for the NHL this season, unlike the NBA and MLB.  The NHL needs fans in the seats in order to be profitable. That will change when the NHL signs a new national television deal after next season.   The NHL currently makes $200 million a year from their NBC deal.  Compare that with the $166 million a year the English Premier League gets from NBC.   Major League Baseball gets $728 million per year from Fox and the NBA takes in $2.6 billion per year from their deal with Turner and Disney.

With a new television deal looming,  the NHL needs to get it right next season so that they can take advantage  and hopefully double their television rights revenue.  The ripple effect will be a higher salary cap meaning raises for the players and roster flexibility for the general managers.

The effect on Ranger prospects

This is one reason why all of the angst over Rangers prospects choosing to play in Europe is basically irrelevant.  Vitali Kravtsov and Yegor Rykov are both playing in the KHL.  The KHL regular season lasts 60 games and should be over by late February with the playoffs concluding two months later.  The way the NHL is going, the KHL season may be days away from ending before the Rangers begin playing meaningful games.

It’s a similar situation for all of the European leagues including Liiga in Finland and the SHL in Sweden where there are several Ranger prospects playing.

The players who will benefit the most are the players in Europe.  That includes Nils Lundkvist, Karl Henriksson, Lias Andersson and Lauri Pajuniemi among others. Players in the SHL, KHL and Liiga are already playing preseason games with the regular seasons starting later this month.   Canadian junior hockey leagues are planning on starting in the fall with the QMJHL looking at an October 1 debut, with the OHL and WHL starting on December 1.

The players who will be idle the longest will be NCAA players with their seasons still in flux.  Collegiate athletes like Zac Jones at UMass-Amherst, Riley Hughes at Northeastern and Eric Ciccolini at Michigan are still waiting to hear when they will play again. Players who signed their Entry Level Contracts in the spring will also be looking at a nine month layoff before they can begin practicing with the team.

No more bubbles

One strategy the NHL will not employ will be the hub concept.  The league has already said that maintaining the bubble is a huge expense and would be problematic during the regular season.  The last thing the league wants is to increase expenses  and though the bubble concept is the safest way to stay healthy, it just costs too much.

What the NHL could adopt is a highly regional schedule that will minimize travel and hotel stays.  For Ranger fans, it could mean a season filled with games against day trip rivals like the Islanders, Devils, Flyer and Bruins.  That’s not a bad thing.

What this does mean is that we won’t be seeing the Rangers playing hockey for quite a while. Monitoring  the progress the scientific community makes in developing preventive measures will tell us a lot about the future of Rangers hockey.   Compared to how the pandemic has affected jobs, school  openings and community health, hockey may not seem important,but the good news is when we will be able to take the subway down to Madison Square Garden and watch a game, it will mean that we are all well on our way to a return to normalcy.