NHL season begins Jan 13 with new divisions

The Game Room
#21

NHL guidelines on covid protocol:
If you’re confirmed positive and asymptomatic - 10 days quarantine.
If you’re a contract trace it’s a six-day block of time.
Local rules come into effect as well, like my home province BC, which has slightly stricter coivd rules than elsewhere in Canada. (The Canucks’ Jamie Benn recently tested positive. :slightly_frowning_face:)
Coaches have to wear facemasks at all times.

This will be an evolving, ongoing thing, and I just hope it can all be pulled off with nothing spiralling out of control.

I’d like to retract my earlier comment about Gritty dude getting it.

ETA: Also Canucks’ JT Miller has to sit out for 6 to 10 days - more of a tracing thing, I believe.

#22

It seems the Blues were the only team to (other than the Canadian team, which is argue is good for them) to willingly move away from old rivals to head out west. Instead of being paired up against Chicago, Nashville, and Detroit. Makes no sense.

#23

How about Chicago and Detroit playing 8 games, though! Original Six rivalry for the Blackhawks again.

#24

Couldn’t have asked for a better opening day with both my teams (Van and Phil - tl;dr story) registering wins.
Seems like the past couple seasons the Canucks acquire a totally franchise-dominant young player, with Quinn Hughes last season, Elias Pettersson before that, and Brock Boeser (well, a little less so) before that.
This season, it’s 20 y.o. rookie Nils Hoglander, getting a goal and an assist yesterday and showing lots of his already-infamous flash. I just hope he keeps his from-behind-the-net lacrosse goals in the minors, where they should stay, IMO.

Heh - surprised, though, if either team make the play-offs.

And congrats!

If I’m not mistaken, this is the first time a visible minority has done national play by play on an NHL telecast in Canada. #WellDone pic.twitter.com/nvt0vyYqmk

— SportsMedia inCanada (@SportsMediaCAN) January 14, 2021

Bolts will suffer with the absence of the world’s fifth best hockey player Nikita Kucherov due to hip surgery; might even miss these play-offs!

#25

St Louis is with Chicago and Detroit. Minnesota is in the Pacific Division

#26

Assuming this isn’t a whoosh, they still have a super-dominant team. They made it through most of the playoffs last year without another superstar in Stamkos.

Go Isles, BTW! 4-0 shutout against the Rangers. Either the Rangers didn’t really show up to play, or the Isles defense is spectacular, because it was never really close.

#27

Sure, the Lightning have oodles of depth and goaltending, and I’ll bet they’ve had the NHL’s best winning % for, like, the past seven or eight seasons, but any team, even a strong one like TB, is a considerably lesser one without a player as impactful as NK.
With Stamkos, I call him a Ming Vase: obviously valuable as all-get-out, but extremely breakable (has spent waaaay too much time sidelined with injuries throughout his career).
Huh, Luke Schenn’s playing for them? I thought he was done. Sure, his brother and he often lead the league in hits, but, well, we’ll see.

#28

No the Blues went over to the West Division for 2021 to replace the Canadian teams that formed their own Division because of Covid.

NHL Divisions (2021)