"The difference between rescheduling for 16 (or 20) buildings and doing so for all 31 arenas is considerable, as is the difference between rescheduling regular-season games -- involving a lot of travel -- and rescheduling a playoff series -- which requires far less of it or none at all, depending on what playoff model the NHL chooses.But he also cautioned, "I don't know if it makes a ton of sense for us to play into August. I still think you need to have a seven-game Stanley Cup Final series -- and the conference championships, too -- to make it part of history and fit the mystique of the Stanley Cup. There were 10 games on the NHL slate Thursday.The NHL began preparing for a stoppage on Thursday morning when it advised all teams to cancel morning skates, practices and team meetings. If the NHL is eventually forced to go a step further and cancel the 2019-20 season and playoffs, it would mark the third time in its history the Stanley Cup hasn't been awarded. We'll never pass along your email address to spammers, scammers, or the like.Your favorite teams, topics, and players all on your favorite mobile devices.Build your custom FanSided Daily email newsletter with news and analysis on Puck Prose and all your favorite sports teams, TV shows, and more.By starting the season later, and keeping it 82 games, the league will never be able to get back to normalcy. Everything is easier said than done. The NHL is still deliberating.NHLPA will obviously be communicating with executive board members (player reps) tonight and over next 24 hours. We all want to see this season to its equitable completion; if there is a postseason, to have the previous five-and-a-half months boiled down to the points percentage variance between teams, with differing numbers of games played, would be a shame. There were still a lot of things the league needed to do before making a decision, even one as serious as this.Darren Dreger on NBC Sports Network just said the NHL could suspend play Thursday, cancel the rest of the regular season and eventually resume with the playoffs. Following the NBA, who suspended the rest of their season, because Rudy Gobert tested positive for the coronavirus, the NHL suspends 2020 season for now.However, things change on a minute-to-minute basis. Start the season a month later, the first week of November, and have the season come to a close around the same time as last year.
(1:35)Bettman said on Thursday that "to the best of his knowledge" there has not been an NHL player who has had a positive test, and that he's not aware of any player on any team being "monitored" for the coronavirus.All options are on the table for the NHL when it comes to potentially scheduling the Stanley Cup playoffs, including having them into early July. ''There are 189 games and 3½ weeks remaining in the NHL's regular season. (Julio Cortez / Associated Press) We all know this. And yes, this depends on which summer months hockey rolls into.With every day that passes, it seems more likely that the 2019-20 NHL season will be canceled, rather than continued due to the COVID-19 pandemic. As fans, we all miss the sport dearly, as we know the players do as well. If it was up to me, hockey would be back tomorrow, but realistically that is just not a feasible possibility.Regardless if these veterans and other veterans getting up there in age decide to keep playing, their times as NHLers is coming to a near close, and they want to enjoy every last shift. By taking the season away for them, they may not get another chance to soak it all in or compete for a chance at the Stanley Cup.Powered by Minute Media © 2020 All Rights Reserved.NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman (Photo by Fred Kfoury III/Icon Sportswire via Getty Images)Your privacy is safe with us. Katya will be updating these articles as we know more, so keep an eye on them and the site as we try to bring you as much credible information as we can.