We have officially surpassed the one-month mark as the stoppage of all professional sports leagues both here and abroad. Very soon, perhaps within the next few weeks, we will be at the point where decisions will have to be made about the direction where we're going. The fate of the 2019-20 NHL season hangs in the balance.

No one wants to see the season canceled if at all avoidable. As such, there are many creative scenarios and ideas being bandied to see what might make sense, and be feasible to do within the next few months.

I had a chance the other day to catch up with one of my former teammates and closest friends, Craig Berube. Chief, of course, is the head coach of the defending Stanley Cup champion St. Louis Blues.

First, we talked a lot about our playing days and the keys to his team's journey to the Stanley Cup last year. It was fun to reminisce, but what really caught my attention was the fact that feels the league will have a chance to play by this summer. He is ready to go whenever the league says that it feasible to play; be-it neutral site venues or regular arenas with very limited or no fans in the stands.

As I noted in my article last week -- and Craig concurs -- it was take roughly a 10-day to two-week training camp for players to get back in game shape by recovering their hockey legs, hockey lungs and doing a quick refresher on systems and timing. In terms of general fitness, there are no excuses for players not to reasonably keep up fitness routines during the stoppage.

Berube thinks that perhaps the League will expand the playoffs to allow teams presently on the outside of the player bubble the chance to play themselves in. It could done similarly to the expanded wildcard format that Major League Baseball adopted: a single-elimination play-in between two wildcard teams, followed by a best-of-five round.

The questions that have to be answered first are where the locations would be, whether it has become reasonably safe environment for the player personnel, coaches, staff, medical personnel and attending media (as well as fans, if any are allowed to attend).

Most importantly, how would participants and their families be kept safe once they are there? Will they, as Dr. Anthony Fauci suggested, be sequestered in a hotel throughout the remainder of the season? What is the procedure if someone does become infected with Covid-19? Does that force the entire team -- and their opponent -- back into quarantine status, because they've all been exposed?

I know for a fact that these scenarios have been discussed and will continue to be discussed. Right now, there are still no definitive answers.

Every professional league would like to resume their season or start their season. Apart from the legitimate desire to compete and people's love of the game, let's not kid ourselves, financial considerations are a major player both on the side of the NHL, its teams and the NHL Players Association.

From a player's standpoint, it is way easier to get up for games in front of packed houses and energetic crowds. The sparser the crowd and the more sterile the atmosphere, the deeper you have to dig to be motivated to play. That's your job as a professional athlete, of course, but it's not always easy.

As far as getting motivated to play goes, let's say that the NHL does, after every team holds its own training camp, finish the regular season in neutral site or empty buildings. After such a long hiatus, could we really expect a team that is already eliminated from the playoffs -- such as the Detroit Red Wings, who are presently 42 points below the wildcard cutoff with 11 postponed games left on their original schedule -- to be motivated to go through a training camp for the purpose of trying to play spoiler for however many rescheduled games there would be before they go home?

I asked Chief. prior to our conversation the other day, about what he thought about the fact that perhaps there would be no fans in the building and the players would have to create that energy. My view: for the teams that will be in the playoffs -- or still battling to get in -- the motivation would be there. The competitive drive would kick right back in. For the teams that are hopelessly out of the running, the players would probably just as soon have the season be over now and start getting ready for next season (even if it would be poor form to say so out loud).

The Flyers, of course, are one of the teams that would be in great shape to be part of the playoffs regardless of the formatting. But it would be a real shame if there won't be any more games at the Wells Fargo Center this season.

The fans in philadelphia has been incredible this year, as the Flyers team has delivered them a consistently winning product on home ice. Once people started to realize that this team is the real deal in terms of being one of the top teams in the Eastern Conference, they responded in a huge way. Games at the Wells Fargo Center were vibrant and fun as the expectation -- not just the hope -- of winning grew and grew.

To think that we're not going to see that again until next season, to my thinking, is a very unfortunate possibility. The bigger picture prevails, though We will not see hockey again -- anywhere -- until it is safe, and mass crowds gathering again inside a building could be even further down the road.

We all want to have a chance to see the Stanley Cup hoisted but the circumstances around it have to make sense for everybody involved. The NHL, like every other league and every other business that is going through this right now, will have to be innovative and creative before we reach the back end of this journey.

See you all right back here next Friday for another edition of Therien's Take.