Commissioner Gary Bettman’s Return to Play announcement confirms the Jets will play the Flames in a play-in series

On Tuesday afternoon, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman made his long awaited announcement about his plan for a Return to Play for the NHL.

Here are the details:

• The 2019 – 2020 NHL regular season has officially concluded;
• 24 teams (12 from each conference) will be in competition for the Stanley Cup
• The qualifying round will involve 16 teams (eight series) and will feature playoff overtime rules
• Top four round-robin done to determine final top 4 seeding;
• Play will resume in two hub cities;
• Hub cities under consideration: Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Edmonton, Vegas, LA, Minneapolis/St.Paul, Pittsburgh, Toronto and Vancouver;
• Training camps to start before the first half of July;
• First-round could still be determined using either a bracket or seeding;
• Best-of-five or best-of-seven will be used in Rounds 1 and 2;
• Best-of-seven for the Conference finals and Stanley Cup Final.

Obviously the above would mean that the Winnipeg Jets would compete against the Calgary Flames (which we discussed over the weekend) in a Best-of-5 play-in series if the league is able to proceed with their playoffs plan.

The above would also seem to suggest that the playoffs will begin in August and continue into September.  Guess you won’t need those #IsitOctoberYet hashtags this year.

Plenty more to come.