Can the NHL still play in the 2022 Olympics?

Expecting to see your favorite New York Rangers in the next Olympics? Not so fast.

The New York Rangers and fans across the NHL are waiting to see how the NHL plans to move forward with the 2020-21 season. The NHL was originally hopeful for a December 1, 2020 start to the season, but has pushed that back, tentatively, to January 1, 2021. The continued concern surrounding the Caronavirus has raised many questions: Fans or no fans in attendance? A full 82 game schedule? Division re-alignment? Bubble cities?

By far and away the Winter Olympics is hockey’s greatest spectacle. Regular, novice and casual fans all watch the Olympic Hockey Tournament with a fever unlike anything the sport normally knows. Team USA’s miracle on ice victory over the USSR in the 1980 Olympic games still rates as one of the greatest moments in sports history.

Since professionals have been permitted to play in the Olympics, the New York Rangers have had their fair share of participants. 18 players wearing New York Rangers blue have represented their countries at the winter Olympics since the 2006 games. Henrik Lundqvist won Gold and Jaromir Jagr a bronze in 2006, Ryan Callahan and Chris Drury won silver with Team USA in 2010, and in 2014 Rick Nash won Gold with Canada while Lundqvist took home a Silver, his second Olympic medal.

Today’s New York Rangers look to have an abundance of players who could represent their countries in 2022.   Literally half the Blueshirts roster could participate. Adam Fox and Chris Kreider for team USA. Artemi Panarin, Pavel Buchnevich, Vitali Ktavtsov and Igor Shesterkin for team Russia, Filip Chytil for the Czech Republic, Mika Zibanejad for team Sweden, Kappo Kakko  for Finland and Alexis Lafreniere for team Canada, are all possibilities. Might these Blueshirts miss out on the opportunity to wear their countries’ colors in a best-on-best format in 2022?

It is certainly worth it for the NHL to allow the players to participate. What the NHL loses in time and revenue it makes up for in exposure one hundred times over. In the past, The NHL has been reluctant to allow the players to participate, even keeping them out of the 2018 Olympic Games. The NHLPA though, ensured the players participation in both the 2022 and 2026 Olympics as part of the negotiations to extend the current CBA. The players understand the value in participating and want to represent their countries and compete on the world stage.

However, is it logistically possible next season? The caronavirus pandemic has already cost the NHL the completion of the 2019-20 season, having ceased play on March 12. The league managed to create a bubble system and use two cities, Toronto and Edmonton, to finish the season. With an expanded playoff format the league was able to award the Stanley Cup to the Tampa Bay Lightning on September 28, 2020.

With the season ending this late, there was no way to start the 2020-21 season on time. The NHL traditionally provides the players with a three month off-season, meaning a November start date was the earliest possible option. Now, with public health and safety concerns, that start date has been pushed into mid December and caused the cancellation of the 2021 NHL All Star Game and Winter Classic.

Elliott Freidman, reporting on yesterday’s GM  call made two assertions. First, that the NHL would like to have a season play as close to an 82 game schedule as possible though he notes that season would need to finish before the Summer Olympics. It would be a broadcasting nightmare if the NHL playoffs were competing with the Olympics for NBC air time.

Second, that the NHL 2021-22 season start on time. This would be the only way for the NHL to allow for the players to participate in the 2022 Winter Olympics. A regularly scheduled 2021-22 season is not be possible with an 82 game 2020-21 season that starts in January. The only way to save NHL player participation in the 2022 Olympics is to shorten the upcoming season.

There is precedence to play a shortened season. Both the 1994-95 and 2012-13 seasons were shortened to 48 games due to labor dispute lockouts. Those seasons were played from January to April, with the Stanley Cup awarded to the New Jersey Devils and Chicago Blackhawks respectively, in June of 1995 and 2013.

In 2013, after having played a 48 game regular season, the playoffs were three games shy of playing a full schedule. Both the first and second rounds went to a full seven games, the Conference Finals saw a sweep and a five game series played and the Stanley Cup was won in a six games finals. That would equate to a 76 game schedule over 156 days from January 19 – June 24, 2013. Which would mean for an 82 game schedule to be played for the 2020-21 season, starting at or around January 1st, the playoffs would begin in mid to late June.

At a roughly every other day format, the playoffs take two weeks per round for a seven game series. If you assume a mid June start to the playoffs, the Stanley Cup will not be awarded until early to mid August. This is already not ideal as it conflicts with the Summer Olympics and would push the opening of training camps for the 2021-22 season into November. Once again pushing  the NHL season into a December or even possibly January start.

Even if the NHL and NHLPA were to agree to shave off some time from the off season, how much could they really save? Take away one month from the off-season and maybe shorten training camp, then perhaps the league starts in mid November. Would the NHL then be willing to allow a two week shut down so that it’s players could participate in the Olympics?

Nothing will be known until the NHL finalizes its plans for the 2020-21 season. Those decisions will trickle down in a cascading effect, pushing the next decisions and dates further down the line. No one is at fault here, as this is all pandemic related, but the NHL and NHLPA may need to decide what is of most importance to the game. An 82 game regular season now, possibly without fans and minimal revenue, or player participation in the 2022 Winter Olympic Games.