The Buffalo Sabres are one of seven teams to have been rudely uninvited to the 2020 NHL Return To Play Bubble Banger. The reality is that Jack Eichel and Associates may not be granted the extra training camp time they were expecting to have given to them to prepare for the start of the 2020-21 NHL season.
On Tuesday, the reports revealed positive news regarding the NHL owners, the NHL Players Association and the January 13, 2021 return to play.
According to reports, the NHL and the NHLPA are no longer face washing one another in the post-whistle scrum. No more drama over dollars. The owners and players will compromise and stay with the Memorandum of Understanding agreement from the Summer of 2020 that will require the players to defer 10% of their salaries for the 2021 season. Also, the MOU will freeze the escrow at 20%.
Get ready for the constant undulations of an accordion-like 56-game NHL regular season. There will be many back-to-back sets, and three games in four nights scheduling pods. The players better report to training camps already in shape otherwise they will be hurtin' for certain if having to play catch up to their elite level NHL peers.
The likelihood is very high that there will be a 10-day training camp for all teams, not just the Sabres, New Jersey Devils, Anaheim Ducks, L.A. Kings, San Jose Sharks, Ottawa Senators and Detroit Red Wings. If you are a fan of NHL exhibition games then you will be sadly disappointed because there won't be any meaningless money-grab games.
When the 10-day training camp ends the pucks will drop on opening night ceremonies from coast to coast in the United States and in Canada.
During the Stanley Cup playoffs were in full swing last summer, there was reporting out of the Edmonton and Toronto bubbles that the seven teams that got stiffed out of the playoffs, had requested extra training camp time in the form of 7-10 days to sufficiently prepare for the 2021 season considering none of the teams were granted permission by the NHL to gather and skate as teams and in large groups. The seven teams that missed the playoffs have not skated in meaningful games since early March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic forced the league to lock the doors. The Sabres' game played was a 3-2 shootout win over the Washington Capitals on March 9.
It was exactly Jack Eichel months ago that the Sabres had their season postponed. In 69 games played, the Sabres finished with a 30-31-8 record (68 points), which gave them a .493 winning percentage. The Montreal Canadiens edged out the Sabres by only an eye lash with their 31-31-9 (71 points) and .500 winning percentage. The bitch of the whole matter for teh Sabres is that they were in Montreal on March 10 preparing to take on the Canadiens the day that the NHL paused the regular season. Had the Sabre-Canadiens game had been played and the Sabres had won, they would have improved their winning percentage to .500 and the Canadiens would have been stuck on .493.
If and buts, candy and nuts. If they all come true, we have a Merry Christmas.
There is chatter that the NHL will allow players to gather in their NHL cities for voluntary shinny and captains skates beginning on December 28.
The caveat with the 2021 NHL Return To Play is is that COVID-19 positivity rates, hospitalizations and deaths are rising at a level that exceeds what the United States and Canada experienced in the first phase of the pandemic in March, April, May and June.
I'm confident that Ralph Krueger and his coaches will introduce newcomers Taylor Hall, Eric Staal, Dylan Cozens, Cody Eakin and Toby Reider to the forward battalion. Krueger will demand that his new forwards sponge up all of the even strength, power play and penalty kill systems and do so while on the fly.
If the Sabres are going to achieve their stated goal of earning a playoff berth, they better start the 56 game schedule with passion and purpose. There will be 112 total points available to the Sabres in the truncated season. Ralph Krueger and his leadership group of players will have to go 7-2-1 or 6-2-2 in each ten game segment of the season, then go 6-2 in the final six games. Doing so would give them 68 to 72 points, which should earn them their first playoff berth since 2011.
The next hurdle the owners and players will have to overcome is division realignment, which will require final approval by the NHL. The U.S. and Canadian border will remain closed until further notice. An all-Canadian division will be one of the bubbles.
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