The National Hockey League and NHL Player’s Association appear to be getting closer to adopting a framework for the game to return this summer, as The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun reported that the NHLPA’s executive board will meet on Thursday evening to discuss a proposed 24-team playoff format.
Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Wednesday that the likely structure of the playoffs would see the top 12 teams (in points percentage) in the Eastern and Western Conference make the postseason.
Teams 5 through 12 would meet in a short play-in round (best-of-three or best-of-five), while the top four compete for top seeding in the first round of the playoffs. In this proposal, the Toronto Maple Leafs would have the #8 seed and face the #9 Columbus Blue Jackets.
Head coach John Tortorella is considered a leading candidate for the Jack Adams (coach of the year) for keeping a club devastated by the free-agent exodus of Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, Ryan Dzingel and Sergei Bobrovsky in the playoff mix.
When the NHL season was paused on March 12, the Blue Jackets held the second wildcard spot in the East with 81 points (the same amount of points as Toronto), in spite of the fact losing most of their core group (forwards Cam Atkinson, Oliver Bjorkstrand, Alexander Wennberg, Josh Anderson, Alexandre Texier, defensemen Seth Jones and Ryan Murray) to injury late in the season.
The two clubs split a pair of games in the opening month, with Toronto winning 4-1 in Columbus on October 4 and the Jackets bouncing back with a 4-3 overtime victory on October 21.
Most if not all of those players will be available to Columbus if the season resumes in mid-July (as most of the speculation indicates), making that matchup a very difficult one for the Leafs, who would have everyone except injured winger Andreas Johnsson available to them.
The winner of that series would then face the top seed of the “bye” group (Boston, Tampa Bay, Washington, and Philadelphia) in the first round or round of 16 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, which could conceivably mean the Leafs playing the Bruins for the fourth time in seven seasons.
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