What to expect when you have no idea what to expect
More than a month after the Tampa Bay Lightning claimed the Stanley Cup in front of an empty Rogers Place in Edmonton, the NHL still doesn’t know if or when the 2021 season will even tentatively begin. Like the return to play process this past summer, there’s going to be rampant speculation.
The league will float ideas out into the general public to check the temperature. Of course, all of this moot against the back drop of the ever worsening COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. The United States is on pace for 200,000 new cases per day by Thanksgiving.
Unless all 31 teams are willing to try and make things work with the Canadian government, again, it seems the potential January start isn’t on the table. With uncontrolled spread in 45 out of 50 states, widespread air travel and hotel stays probably are going to be a tough sell.
Even more pressing, the NHL, like the NBA, delayed its potential 2021 season in hopes that fans will be allowed to return. Yet, with the virus spreading exponentially, that probably won’t be on the table until late spring at the earliest.
With so many teams around the league facing a major financial shortfall, this process may drag on in the development stage. To be fair, I was skeptical of the NHL’s return to play plan this summer expecting the worst. Gary Bettman and the league proved me wrong and put on a pretty good playoffs.
Now however, the challenge of running a compressed season during a pandemic is a touch more daunting.
In an ESPN article published Tuesday, Bettman revealed the league was considering divisional realignment. Since different states have various quarantine requirements, the league will need to get creative.
This likely means that there will be a Canada specific division because of the 14 day quarantine requirement for those traveling from the United States. In addition, most of the states in the northeast have similar requirements.
Yes, a potential New York/New Jersey/Pennsylvania division sounds like hell to me too.
What can the Rangers expect?
New York is one of the states with a lower but still increasing positivity rate. Its governor, Andrew Cuomo, took aggressive positions to curb the virus after an initially slow response that likely came a week too late.
New York City itself is slowly starting resemble pre-pandemic life, plus masks. But, Madison Square Garden will probably be empty for Alexis Lafreniere’s debut for the New York Rangers.
I don’t imagine Cablevision mogul James Dolan trying to pinch pennies when it comes to team spending. However, the salary cap constraints going forward will impact a cash rich team like the Rangers more harshly than others.
The NHL salary cap is expected to stay at a flat $ 81.5 million for at least the next two seasons based on projected revenue losses from the pandemic. For a young team like the Rangers, that means that when raises come due, it will mean losing depth.
Assuming that head coach David Quinn can start molding the small army of draft picks at his disposal into actual players, the team will have an embarrassment of riches. As it sits now, the team has one of, if not the best prospect pools in the entire league.
A majority of that perceived value is tied to Alexis Lafreniere and Kappo Kakko. It’s hard to judge where both players respectively are in their development because of the infrequency of hockey at the moment.
Neither was loaned to a junior team or a club in Europe, meaning that the organization wants them in the New York area to be ready whenever training camp does start.
Based on rough estimates, teams would get somewhere between two and four weeks of training camp to ramp up conditioning for a regular season.
I’m not holding my breath that the regular season is underway by the first week of February. With so many variables up in the air, it’s hard to have any real direction for the organization.
The head coach and front office may have an idea for what this season should be. However, a potentially restricted schedule could be more difficult than a typical 82 game season.
Say that hypothetical north east division comes to fruition. Playing only the Islanders, Devils, Sabres, Penguins, Flyers and maybe even the Bruins as the entire schedule is a tough draw.
There are no easy games in the NHL, but I’d sure prefer the Rangers got a game in there against the Ottawa Senators at some point.
Furthermore, the Rangers’ organization faces the looming issue of contracts on the horizon. In a compressed shortened season, can the front office reasonably evaluate its own young talent?
Is 48 games enough of a sample size to judge whether or not Kakko is getting better? Hell, is it long enough to tell if Quinn is pushing the team in the right direction.
Think about the problems the New York Mets had in a 60 game MLB season. That’s less than half the length of a normal 162 game marathon.
In a 50ish game season, the Rangers could show their youth and get boat raced out of the mix early.
The biggest issue for New York is the lack of game time. As one of the youngest teams in the league, the only way to get better is to play. The season not starting until February and only a 50 or so game one at that is even more concerning.
The most finite asset in sports is time. Right now, the organization has an abundance of entry level contracts with built in cost controls. However, it’s two years out from the first wave of big extensions that will quickly make up the core of a potential contender.
Without a large enough sample size for the decision making process, it’s only in my nature to get worried. The runway to contender status seems long and in front of the team. But, just because the team’s prospect pool is graded highly doesn’t mean success is guaranteed.
Yes, it’s extremely early to panic about what a short season means for the long-term plans of the organization. But, if I wasn’t worried about the Rangers in the middle of football season during a pandemic, I wouldn’t be me.
