Who weeps for the Florida Panthers?
Hey, don't look at me like that. Those of us who love sports, never mind those who make a living off them, are about to have boundless time on our hands. And a big part of mine the day after all the games in all the leagues came to a sudden, strikingly silent stop was to think about the poor Panthers, a franchise so isolated they agreed to be placed in a division with Canadian teams just so those Canadians could buy tickets when their favorites flew south.
Stay with me here, though. I haven't gone completely loco. Yet.
Check out the NHL's Eastern Conference standings, specifically the wild-card picture, now frozen in stasis until further notice:
Know that ages-old line about 'if the season ended today,' well, that day's come. And when it did, the Hurricanes and Blue Jackets, as seen above, held the East's two wild cards. Which means, of course, they'd be the conference's seventh and eighth seeds in the playoffs, and everyone else packs up.
I know, I know, who cares?
But this might matter, as it offers a tiny, if tantalizing example of how and why the novel coronavirus COVID-19 will wreak havoc with the NHL's challenge-to-come in carving out a new path toward raising the Stanley Cup this summer.
See that team under the Blue Jackets up there?
Yep, the same Islanders who swept the Penguins last spring. A single point back ... but with two games in hand on the Blue Jackets. If that game in Columbus a couple night ago had come off, and the Blue Jackets had beaten the Penguins, they'd have vaulted past the whole pack
OK, now see who's next?
Yep, that other New York team. The Rangers have been one of the most uplifting stories in the league all winter, defying their own management's rebuild attempt to contend, and that story's been naturally magnified many times over given the media presence there. They're two points behind the Blue Jackets.
Then there's the Panthers.
Three points back but with a game in hand on both the Blue Jackets and the Maple Leafs, the only Atlantic Division peer they could catch. Unlike the Rangers, few will care if they do/don't make it, but their plight's no less real.
Here's my point: I have a really, really hard time envisioning the NHL resuming the 2019-20 regular season. Even if this virus magically faded from sight in a month -- it won't -- the logistics of continuing the regular season are infinitely more daunting than that of a brief play-in tournament, which I was told by a league source late Friday night is the most plausible outcome currently being considered by Gary Bettman and crew.
Think of it along the lines of the NCAA Tournament's play-in games. You know, where the four lowest-seeded automatic bids take on the four lowest-seeded at-large bids, and the result is Nos. 61-64 on your March Madness brackets. Bunch of fun. Gets even more schools involved, more ratings, more nets cut down, the whole deal.
Well, in the NHL's case, from what I heard, there wouldn't be time for any extensive whittling down. So what'd happen, in all likelihood, is that the conference's Nos. 7 and 8 teams would take on the Nos. 9 and 10 teams, maybe in a single game. Like Major League Baseball's one-and-done wild card games, which, by the way, invariably get higher ratings than the World Series.
In the East, that'd be Hurricanes vs. Rangers, Blue Jackets vs. Islanders.
In the West, that'd be Jets vs. Wild, Predators vs. Canucks.
Sounds awesome, right?
Nope, not to the Panthers. They did nothing to deserve having their season cut short by a game, they actually have a greater points percentage than the Rangers, and two of their next three games would've been against the Devils and Red Wings.
Fine, then toss the Rangers out and see how that plays in America's biggest market.
In the West, there's no such issue, with Rick Tocchet's Coyotes three points behind the No. 10 spot and having played one more game than the Wild. They've made their bed.
But all it takes is one exception in a once-in-a-century circumstance like this to blow it all up. And the Panthers' plight is just enough to do that here, whether anyone not named Barkov, Huberdeau or Ekblad cares or not.
Gary Bettman, appearing on NHL Network Friday night, was asked about the schedule, and responded with more candor than the norm in saying, "We're figuring out every possible scenario, trying to work with everything from the latest news to seeing where we could play, how for into the summer we could go, to when we can hold the draft, to whether we can conduct the draft by a conference call if we can't hold an event, to moving the Awards show ..."
Yikes. That's late June on the normal calendar.
"So, I mean, there's no shortage of things for us to be considering, which we're doing and analyzing," he proceeded. "I have an internal task force that's meeting a couple times a day that surfacing these issues. But they're all contingencies because we don't know when. And we don't know the circumstances."
He's right. His internal task force could be meeting around the clock, and it wouldn't matter unless they spent some of that time developing a vaccine.
"We’re doing all sorts of modeling," he wrapped up, "whether it’s completing the existing regular season as is and then a full playoffs, or whether or not, based on time constraints, we’re going to have to make adjustments and do something different, novel, creative."
Not sure 'novel' was the optimal word choice, but the point was made. Loud and clear.
Thus, my outlook:
• If/when the NHL does resume, to repeat, again, there'll be no regular-season resumption.
• Something fair to the Panthers and Rangers will be whipped up. I'm not nearly smart enough to whip that up myself, but maybe the play-in can be four teams battling for the eighth seed rather than four battling for both the seventh and eighth seeds.
• The individual rounds, certainly the first two, can easily be truncated to best-of-fives. That'd be a savage consideration for the conference finals or, worse, the Final, but it's palatable before that.
• Although the NBA's known to be inquiring about arena availabilities as far out as August, the NHL's got to operate on ice. Yeah, we've seen a Final recently in Vegas in June, and the ice did stay mostly frozen, but concerts and other shows make developing/maintaining/switching regarding ice a ton tougher than laying down a hardwood court. I'm not suggesting it's impossible, just that it'd ideally be avoided.
• Pushing the Final back too far could force a later start to the 2020-21 season, or even a shortening of it. While that'd be a lot easier on the schedule-makers -- all NHL teams have either first or second dibs on dates in their home venues -- it'd also feel a lot like compounding a problem that's more readily solved this summer.
Then again, none of this might matter.
And not just to the fine citizens of Sunrise.
Vladimir Tarasenko has a message for all the Blues fans out there. #stlblues pic.twitter.com/HM8HnpPOmR
— St. Louis Blues (@StLouisBlues) March 13, 2020
• The most recent Cup champs sounded certain they'd lost Vladimir Tarasenko for the season when he went down to left shoulder surgery Oct. 30, but he'd recently begun skating, to the surprise of many, and word in St. Louis was that he'd have been able to return for playoffs. Now, as he seemed to indicate in the video above, the current 'pause' in the NHL season, as Bettman's got everyone calling it, would virtually assure that.
Makes me think of a certain other guy coming off left shoulder surgery and how a video like that would be received around here.
Not to apply any pressure to Jake Guentzel. As a team official told me a month ago in Tampa, what happened to his shoulder was more akin to a car accident than a hockey injury. What's relevant is his long-term well-being.
But hey, this is the time to scrape for the positive.
• None of the Penguins has shown any symptoms of coronavirus, I'm told, but I'm further told none of them has been tested yet, either. I'm not sure where or even if to find fault with this -- testing kits are still like gold across the country -- but this at least feels lousy.
• Not lousy, but not surprising: Mario Lemieux, Ron Burkle and Sidney Crosby did right by Linda the Friendly Elevator Lady and everyone else who relies on a part-time paycheck at PPG Paints Arena. Good for them.
• The players could be permitted to do some on-ice work by next week with Ty Hennes, the skills coach, in Cranberry. No more than a handful of players at a time. Circumstances permitting, of course. Until then, they're all simply home, with advice to not move around much, including meeting with each other.
Pirates vs. Blue Jays, Thursday, Bradenton, Fla. - ALEX STUMPF / DKPS• If the NHL is coming across as optimistic about its hope of resuming in 3-4 weeks, then MLB is outright naive in still clinging to a default mode of being out only two weeks and, even with that delay, still playing 162 games.
First off, what'd be the point?
The very first thing anyone in Rob Manfred's office should've brought up is the old 154-game schedule or, really, any lower number. Because no one could count a dozen people in America who'd care if baseball seasons -- or games, for that matter -- would be shortened.
Worse, the plan for the 162 games would push back the playoffs, which already have extended into November.
• Has this guy done anything worthwhile as commissioner yet?
I mean, if anything was going to present a second chance at getting something right after how he blew it with the Astros, this is it. And so far, there sure hasn't been much.
Case in point: Games lasted well after those of any other sport, including the Pirates' exhibition with the Blue Jays on Thursday afternoon in Bradenton, Fla., even though Manfred himself had owners on call that morning amid authoritative hints that he'd pull the plug that day.
Not all people are cut out for all jobs.
• As I type this, the season's still officially set to open April 9. And yet, MLB and the MLB Players Association gave players permission Friday to leave their spring camps for wherever they call home. Or, if they wished, to stay put.
The Yankees voted on it and elected to stay in Tampa, Fla., because they'll keep working in an environment they feel is controlled. Other teams simply sent everyone on their way, including, most disappointingly, minor-leaguers and others who don't have full-time accommodations in the U.S. and can't afford any. Expect to hear/read a lot about the latter in the days to come.
• Final baseball schedule note: If interleague play gets scrapped -- and talk about something else no one in Pittsburgh would miss -- then that'll mean the Pirates avoided opening in St. Petersburg, where the Rays likely would've thrown Charlie Morton, Tyler Glasnow and Blake Snell at them. Never mind the unsightly nature of falling to the prominent former Pirates, it would've been a terribly tough start.
• Give the Pirates credit: Players and visitors to the Bill McKechnie Clubhouse at LECOM Park raved about the job the team did in fumigating the entire complex a few days ago, and that's on top of that place always being spotless. That sort of behind-the-scenes thing doesn't mean anything to fans, but it does to the participants. It's been forever since I've heard any player complain about any aspect of the Pirates' facilities, training equipment, etc.
• Give the Pirates further credit: Rather than simply sending everyone on their way, they offered players multiple options, including staying in Bradenton and utilizing all facilities, including housing.
• The Pirates' players haven't been tested yet either, for the record. I feel exactly the same about that.
• A direct note of gratitude here to Jameson Taillon, as well as the Pirates' longtime and super media relations staff, Jim Trdinich and Dan Hart, for the conference call Taillon conducted Friday with beat writers, including our Alex Stumpf down there. That allows us to do our job and, more important by far, you to keep in touch as a fan.
• The pandemic will impact our business, as I detail in today's Site Stuff, but the notion that there are no sports to cover ... that's really not how it works. There are no games, sure, but the news never stops. And that's doubly true this week of the NFL, as Dale Lolley writes, where it's one of the wildest periods of the year: CBA vote as soon as today, Bud Dupree's franchise tag decision and, above all, the opening of free agency Wednesday.
Our own schedule's still simple.
• Also, who says we can't get together?
It's my Live Qs at 5 day!