NHL not ruling out possibility of teams returning home for playoffs

The NHL announced its return-to-play plan this week, and that includes two hub cities hosting 24 teams in a rather interesting playoff format. While NHL commissioner Gary Bettman named 10 hub city finalists, things aren't set in stone.

There's still a chance that games are played outside of the hub cities, provided health and safety concerns change drastically in a positive direction, and we may even see teams return to their home cities at some point during the playoffs. 

“Yes. It depends on what the world looks like,” said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman in an interview with NBC’s Mike Tirico, according to NBC Sports Boston's Joe Haggerty. "If you made me guess today I think we’ll be in one of the two hub cities, or conceivably a third city, but if things change dramatically and we have the ability to go back to the home markets [we would do it.] We anticipate playing this without fans, but if at some point things change and we could then obviously we would re-evaluate. Everything we’ve been doing for the last 10-12 weeks was having to do with preparing for anything that might be in front of us. 

“[It’s about] having alternatives and having optionality and making sure we were flexible enough to adapt to whatever is going on.” 

The number of coronavirus cases in the club's home cities would need to improve drastically over the next few months for the NHL to allow teams to return home, but it's nice to know that the NHL hasn't ruled out the possibility.  

While the NHL does have a plan in place, players can't resume full training until at least July 1. If they resume on that date, it's likely we could see games being played as early as August. Players will need about a month to get back in shape, and plenty of small details will need to be ironed out before teams take the ice once again.  

A majority of NHL clubs were very receptive to the idea of a 24-team playoff format, but the Tampa Bay Lightning and Carolina Hurricanes both voted against it, citing that it's "unfair," among other things.