NHL cancels the 2021 All-Star Game & Winter Classic

As the New York Rangers prepare for the 2020-21 season, two signature events have been cancelled

The NHL announced Thursday that two big regular season events will not happen during the 2020-21 season.  Due to a need to get the entire season in, the league has cancelled the NHL All-Star Weekend that was supposed to be held in Sunrise, Florida from January 29-20, 2021.

That means no skills competition or All-Star mini-games,but more important to the league is that they will not have the traditional weeklong All-Star break.

The league also cancelled the Bridgestone Winter Classic. The annual event was supposed to be played on New Year’s Day, 2021 in Minneapolis with the Minnesota Wild hosting the St. Louis Blues.

While the league called these “postponements” they also acknowledged that the events will not be played until 2022.

While the Rangers are not scheduled to take part in the Winter Classic any time soon and have never hosted the game, the All-Star Game could have been a showcase of some of the Blueshirts’ young talent.

Regular season still on schedule

The NHL was careful to announce that these changes will not affect the scheduled start date for the 2020-21 season, tentatively set for January 1.   The league is under enormous pressure to play a full 82 games season and to get fans into arenas.   While a January 1 start means that the season will extend into the summer, there is an additional issue for the NHL.

In order to satisfy the NHL’s deal with NBC, the Stanley Cup Playoffs have to end by Thursday July 22.  That’s the day before the Tokyo Olympics begin on July 23 and NBC will have to clear its schedule in order to accommodate the Games.

Last season, the Stanley Cup Playoffs started on August 11 and the last possible date was October 2, a total of 53 days.  That included a compressed schedule with no travel days because the teams were all in the same two bubble cities.   It’s better to compare the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs that included travel dates.  In 2019, the playoffs started on April 10 and ended on June 12, a total of 64 days.

In order to conclude the 2021 Playoffs by July 22 in that same time frame, the Playoffs would have to start on May 20.   If the regular season starts on January 1 and ends on May 18 it will take 138 days.   That means playing 82 games in 138 days.

In 2018-19 it took 185 days to complete the regular season.  Even if you take out the All-Star break an bye weeks it would have taken 175 days to finish the season, fully 37 more days than the league has budgeted for 2021.

That’s not a lot of time and the league will no doubt adopt some pandemic-related scheduling initiatives to save time.   It’s clear that the league is engaged in finding ways to fit in a full schedule,but if they start any later than January 1, it will be a real challenge.