We were conditioned early in the pause to be ready for next season to potentially be delayed until some time in November.



Tack on another month now.



As I hinted near the bottom of my column last Friday, the idea of delaying next season’s start until December has indeed been discussed by the NHL with its teams as a possibility, multiple sources around the league confirmed.



The kicker is that the league still hopes to cram in a full 82-game season, even with a December start.



Which would mean – as with the November start scenario – wiping out All-Star weekend, the bye weeks, shortening the Christmas holiday break and basically tightening the entire schedule matrix wherever possible. The result would push the regular season into May and playoffs into July.



Again, as I say all the time during this season pause, none of this is written in stone. It’s just being discussed as a possibility.



But there are two reasons...