A return to NHL action could mean daily triple-headers, per Elliotte Friedman

Since March 12th, hockey fans have been pining for the return of the sport they love so much, especially the playoff hockey, in which they are most invested. Though we do not yet know for sure if hockey will, in fact, return to conclude the 2019-20 season, given the in-depth planning that has occurred, all signs point toward the puck being dropped within the next 30-45 days, barring a massive setback due to COVID-19.

According to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, the NHL could look to expedite the qualifying and seeding rounds, as well as the playoffs, by scheduling daily triple-headers.

"I was always told to prepare for triple-headers - that that's the kind of thing we would be looking at, triple-headers on a daily basis,"�Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman�told the NHL Network on Thursday.

"I've been told that as it stands right now, the last possible day of the Stanley Cup Final is Oct. 5. So you can pretty much do the math, that's something like 66 days (from the end of July)," he continued.

It goes without saying that there is still a lot of kinks to iron out if that plan does indeed come to fruition. One thing to consider is the rigorous cleaning regiment that would be required between each game. With hockey, and most sports for that matter, games have the potential to reach overtime, which would then push the deadlines for the focused cleaning to take place. The league has not yet identified how they would plan to mitigate this risk if things unfold the way Friedman suggests that they might.

"If we do go two western cities, that's going to be very interesting for TV how they do that. In theory, you can play at 1:00, 4:00, and 7:00 every day locally, which is 4:00, 7:00, and 10:00 ET. But these are playoff games, what if we go to overtime? We talked about the cleaning that needs to be done between games, maybe that's not long enough a time between games.

"I was told to expect triple-headers, I don't have any reason to believe that's different, but I'm not sure how much time they need in between all of these particular games."

July 30th is the tentative date that the league is eyeing for a potential return to action, with a training camp to occur prior to that, beginning on July 10th, as long as everything goes according to plan.

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