NHL commissioner Gary Bettman formally announced the league's 24-team return-to-play plan in a video message on Tuesday afternoon, and included good news for Rangers fans.
Here is everything you need to know from Bettman's announcement, including what it means for the Rangers moving forward…
- As of Tuesday, the 2019-20 NHL regular season is officially complete. When play resumes, the top 12 teams in each conference (based on points percentage on the March 12 initial pause date) will make the playoffs, with the remaining seven teams entered straight into the NHL Draft Lottery.
- The top four teams in each conference play a round robin style of games against one another to officially determine the conference's top four playoff seeds. In the East, those four teams are the Boston Bruins, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, and Philadelphia Flyers.
- The remaining eight teams in each conference will play a best-of-five Qualifying Round to determine who moves forward to the First Round of the playoffs. As the 11th seed, the Rangers will face the Carolina Hurricanes in the Qualifying Round. The seventh seed Islanders will play the 10th seed Florida Panthers.
- It is still to be determined whether the First and Second rounds of the playoffs will be a bracket format or if each round will be determined by seeding. It's also still undecided if the First and Second Round series will be best-of-five or best-of-seven. The Conference Finals and Stanley Cup Finals will be best-of-seven series.
- The NHL will resume play in two hub cities, with one hub for each conference. The two hub cities have yet to be determined, though 10 cities are under consideration, including Chicago, Pittsburgh, Las Vegas, Los Angeles, and Toronto. Hub cities will provide secure hotels, arenas, practices facilities, and in-market transportation. The league will have a comprehensive testing system in each hub city.
- No firm dates for resuming play have been set, but the NHL expects to enter Phase 2 of the return-to-play plan in early June, as clubs will then be allowed to return to home facilities for voluntary, small group, and off-ice workouts. Phase 3, which will consist of formal training camps, will start no earlier than July 1. Phase 4 is when games will actually resume, though exact time will be based on public health data.
The NHL is hopeful to play throughout the summer and into the early fall, with Bettman saying that the time frame will enable the NHL to play a full 2020-21 season. Of course, health and safety of all employees involved will determine the timeline.
"Obviously, these are extraordinary and unprecedented times. Any plan for the resumption of play, by definition, cannot be perfect and I am certain that depending on which team you root for, you can find some element of this package that you might prefer to be done differently," said Bettman. "But we believe we have constructed an overall plan that includes all teams that as a practical matter might have had a chance of qualifying for the playoffs when the season was paused. And this plan will produce a worthy Stanley Cup Champion who will have run the postseason gauntlet that is unique to the NHL.
"As we seek some return to normalcy, this is an important day, particularly for NHL fans. Since March 12, we have been hopeful and optimistic that by developing all options and alternatives we could get to this point. I know I join sports fans everywhere when we say we cannot wait for our players to hit the ice again."
This formal plan is good news for the Rangers, who now know they're in the playoffs, and know they'll be facing a Hurricanes team that they've had some success against this season.
The Rangers outscored the Hurricanes 17-9 in their four victories earlier this season, with two of them coming in November, one coming in December, and one coming in February. During New York's four wins against the Hurricanes, Henrik Lundqvist was dominant in three of them, stopping 125 of 132 total shots. Rookie Igor Shesterkin started the other game against the Canes, stopping 27 of 29 shots in a 5-2 win on Feb. 21.