Written by Scott on Wednesday, May 27th, 2020
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Finally we have some good news. The NHL has officially approved a 24-team playoff format for its return to play, with each conference playing its games in a single hub city, commissioner Gary Bettman announced Tuesday.
The date hasn’t yet been confirmed but it will jump straight to the playoffs so the regular season is over.
Seeding will be determined by conference standings based on points percentage – a calculation dividing accrued points by maximum possible points based on games played.
The top four teams in each conference will receive byes to the first round of the playoffs, but they will play against each other to determine seeding. These games will be played with regular-season overtime and shootout rules, with ties in the final standings broken by regular-season points percentage.
The remaining eight teams in each conference will play best-of-five qualifying series to determine which four clubs advance to the first round. The matchups will be based on conference standings by points percentage and will feature continuous 5-on-5 overtime when necessary. The matchups look like this.
In the Eastern Conference the bye teams are: Bruins #1, Lightning #2, Capitals #3 and the Flyers #4. The matchups are #5 Penguins vs #12 Canadiens, #6 Hurricanes vs #11 Rangers, #7 Islanders vs #10 Panthers and #8 Leafs vs #9 Blue Jackets.
In the Western Conference the bye teams are: Blues #1, Avalanche #2, Golden Knights #3 and Stars #4. The matchups are #5 Oilers vs #12 Blackhawks, #6 Predators vs #11 Coyotes, #7 Canucks vs #10 Wild and #8 Flames vs #9 Jets.
This is incredible news and I can’t wait for this to get going. I know this isnt going to be a typical playoff hockey but it will be awesome for some live hockey and will make the world seem normal when the games are on.
With the season being over the Boston Bruins won the Presidents Trophy. Leon Draisaitl won the Art Ross Trophy for most points, Ovechkin and Pastrnak share the Rocket Richard Trophy with 48 goals each and Rask and Halak won the William M. Jennings Trophy which is awarded to the goalies who have played a minimum of 25 games and had the fewest goals against.
There are things to bet on for today. Bundesliga is going on and can be bet at Bovada for Americans, for Canadians it’s Sports Interaction (SIA) and Everyone else it is Bet365 (Americans: We recommend http://www.bovada.lv. If you like to bet on Simulations then you can bet on Madden or NHL sims at Bovada/Bodog
With such good news though I’ll be avoiding tips for today
