Report: NHL season will be shortened, despite protests from the players

According to a report from from New York Rangers insider Larry Brooks of the New York Post, the upcoming 2020-21 NHL season will be shortened despite the fact that the NHLPA has protested against a shortened schedule.

From Brooks:

The league has no interest at all in playing through the summer, so that will mean a truncated schedule of anywhere between 50 and 70 games, depending upon the league structure. The NHLPA has indicated its desire to play the full 82-game schedule, but that would take the league into late August. That is not a possibility.

The schedule would likely be modeled on the 2020 MLB season in which travel was limited through geographical play. It is possible that teams could play baseball-like series, with, for example, the Rangers going to Boston for three games in a five-day period.

Dates would have to be left open, either in season or following the targeted end date, to accommodate postponements that will inevitably occur as the pandemic continues to rage across the U.S. and Canada.

If Brooks is indeed correct, that means NHL players will be looking at playing in sixth shortened or cancelled season since Gary Bettman took over as the league's commissioner in 1993. 

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