Golden Knights owner Bill Foley believes that the 2020-21 NHL season will begin on Feb. 1, he said on a radio appearance on KSHP Vegas Hockey Hotline on Wednesday.
That's a full month later than the NHL's last announced target date of Jan. 1, which Gary Bettman announced prior to the draft on Oct. 6.
While the NHL has previously said that the goal is a full 82-game season, Foley said that he believes the season will be shorter, like "48 or 56 games," and that the schedule would likely feature a lot of back-to-back games.
"If we're going to play 56 games over four months, that's a lot of games," Foley said. "There's not going to be a break. There's going to be a lot of back-to-backs. In theory we're going to play four games a week to get this season done. Maybe even more, five games a week."
One of the reasons Foley gave for the shortened season is to avoid running into the Tokyo Olympics schedule, which begins on July 23. The Olympics will be covered on NBC, a network that is also the main U.S. rights holder for NHL games.
Even with a shortened season, there are several factors that could make next season challenging. One issue is the U.S.-Canadian border, which remains closed to nonessential travel. Foley said that another bubble like the one in the postseason would be "impossible," and suggested that the NHL would have an all-Canadian team division next season to avoid having to cross the border, leaving the 24 American teams to play in their own divisions.
“I don’t think the border is going to be open before Jan. 1, if it’s open Jan. 1,” he said. “They’re starting to lock down again. Winnipeg’s locking down. Quebec has got spikes going on. I think they’re going to be playing a Canadian division. I don’t think they’re going to be crossing the border.”
The most pressing issue is how the NHL would handle potentially playing with no fans or a small amount of fans in the building, since the NHL is such a gate-driven league.
"The NFL has such a great TV contract that they can survive," Foley said. "We do not have that kind of contract. The NHL is a game-day activity. If you don't have game-day revenue, you don't survive."
"Who knows if we're going to be playing? If we aren't playing in front of fans, a lot of teams can't make it," he said. "That's including us, to make a serious financial commitment to fund the team without playing in front of fans,. I don't believe Gary Bettman is going to have us fly all around and play in empty arenas."
Even with limited fans, Foley said that teams would struggle, and that teams would need to be at around 50 percent attendance, something that is logistically difficult and not even permitted in some jurisdictions yet.
"I think everyone is very nervous," he said. "I think we all thought we'd be working our way out of COVID by now and have fans in the arena. We have to see what we accomplish with 40 percent or 50 percent of fans. Can we get that many people into the arena and have it be done safely? Can they all be tested with a nasal swab the day of the game? Right now in Vegas, you can have 10% of your capacity. I have no clue how it's going to work. We need to get up to 40 or 50 percent attendance, and then we can come up with some kind of program where every other game you can go to, that sort of thing. But with 1,800 people in the arena? That's not enough."