NHL commish, Gary Bettman announces playoff set up!!!

NHL commissioner, Gary Bettman addressed the media on Tuesday, and revealed details surrounding the NHL's return to play. The commissioner was very thankful of the hard work that's been put in from both the league and the player's and was as happy as ever to share the news with NHL fans. Bettman felt this set up would honor not only the Stanley Cup trophy, but also the integrity of the game.


via GIPHY

Details on the NHL's comeback include:
- 2 hub-cities approach, hotels, transportation, accommodations, amongst other things still needs to be sorted, but will be taken care of.
- 50 person limits for each team travelling to hub cities
- One city hosts Eastern Conference, other hosts the Western Conference
- 24-team playoff format, with the top 4 teams in each conference playing round-robin to re-seed for 2nd round, playing 3 games, one against each team
- Other 16 teams play seeded first-round match up, it's still being discussed if it could potentially be a best-of-five series
- All other rounds will be a best-of-seven series
- Phase 2 of the NHL's return will be opening by June 8th
- Phase 3 includes training camps opening fully will be by second week of July
- Phase 4, clubs report and the NHL resumes play, and play is expected into the early fall
- August start seems most logical - per NHL executive to NHLTR
- not announcing hub cities until later date, narrowed down to a number of cities, including Columbus, Dallas, Minny, Vancouver, Edmonton, LA, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Vegas

FIRST-ROUND MATCH-UPS
EASTERN CONFERENCE - Top 4 seeds: Boston, Tampa, Washington, Philly
- (5) Pittsburgh vs (12) Montreal
- (6) Carolina vs (11) New York Rangers
- (7) New York Islanders vs (10) Florida
- (8) Toronto vs (9) Columbus

WESTERN CONFERENCE - Top 4 seeds: St Louis, Colorado, Vegas, Dallas
- (5) Edmonton vs (12) Chicago
- (6) Nashville vs (11) Arizona
- (7) Vancouver vs (10) Minnesota
- (8) Calgary vs (9) Winnipeg

ARE YOU READY!!??

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Everything you need to know about the draft lottery, explained by Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman:

Odds pic.twitter.com/6lCze8wqHF

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) May 26, 2020

Lottery: June 26. Draw to determine each of top three picks. If any of those picks are won by a team in the play-in, there will be a second phase to determine that team after the play-ins are completed.

— Elliotte Friedman (@FriedgeHNIC) May 26, 2020