Dater: NHL schedule could resemble that of Major League Baseball | NYHN+

By Adrian Dater

Yesterday, I reported that the NHL wants and expects teams to play regular-season home games in their own buildings – with the proviso that nothing is final yet and things are still fluid. I believe that is still very much the hope for the NHL, which would greatly prefer not to go back to a “hub city” schedule scenario like we had in the playoffs.

There are complicating factors for this to happen, though, one being that teams in some states/cities currently have severe restrictions on gatherings/travel/opening-for-business because of COVID-19. Take the San Jose Sharks, for example. Right now, they are a team essentially without a home, because of the severe restrictions in their area, Santa Clara County (our San Jose Hockey Now’s Sheng Peng has exhaustively detailed the situation here). The Sharks are likely to hold their training camp in Arizona, and might have to play their regular-season home games there or in another city.