Gary Bettman addresses rumors of a delayed or shortened season for 2020-2021.

The National Hockey League's commissioner delivered his annual state of the league address over the weekend and it was during that address that he commented on some of the big rumors that have been floating around regarding the 2020 - 2021 NHL regular season.

There has been concern among fans, and understandably so, about how the delay from this current season will impact the NHL's next season. Those concerns range from wondering when the next season will begin to wondering whether or not the NHL will be playing hockey in the middle of the summer again next time around. To his credit Gary Bettman had some good answers to those questions and largely squashed the rumors that I previously mentioned. 

In regards to playing hockey in the summer, Bettman made it clear he wasn't loving the idea.

"My preference would be to stay out of summer as much as possible," said Bettman.

We have all been wondering about how realistic the start date of December 1st for the upcoming NHL season would be and it sounds like the NHL may have been slightly overconfident in that regard. Bettman would not confirm a delay to the start of next season but did leave open the possibility.

There was one more question that I was hoping would be raised during his address with the media and that was in regards to the playoff format that was used this season. There has been talk that the NHL playoff format could see some changes moving forward in regards to how the bracket is set up or even in terms of potentially adding more teams, but Bettman shut that down pretty quickly as well. 

The commissioner made it clear it would take a lot of convincing to sway him on this particular issue. 

"I've never been a fan of expanding the playoffs. ... It will take a fair amount of convincing, to me at least, that we need to be making a change," said Bettman.

The league will soon have 32 teams with Seattle entering the fray, and that means that exactly half the league's teams will qualify for the playoffs every year. I honestly agree with Bettman here and I think that is more than fair already.