Kim Gentes

The current shortened NHL season may well the most competitive, high-intensity and exciting season ever. But I think it will also prove to be self-destructive. With just 56 games in a shortened season, and realigned divisional groupings, teams are required to only play opponents within their 8 team division. This has been a great intensifier for division rivalries. If you've been watching the games, you know the rivalries have made regular season hockey look like playoff hockey. And that is the problem.

The Arizona Coyotes just finished a series of 7 (yes seven!) straight games against the St Louis Blues.  That is the equivalent to an entire playoff round/series. And all the teams are doing these multi-game series. But the most intense division is the Canadian North division (a temporary division of 7 teams created due to Covid-19 restrictions in Canada). With the least number of teams in the division, and some of the most heated rivalries (for example, Edmonton/ Calgary) the Canadian teams are grinding each other into a pulp in just the first month of the season.

The concept and reasons for setting up the season as they did is understandable for the NHL, but with every team facing rival opponents 10 times each or more the physical and emotional equivalent of playing 7 months of playoff intensity hockey is becoming a reality. It isn't sustainable. And we may soon be seeing some of the impact:  more injuries, lopsided games where teams are being blown out and a return to 70s style crosscheck hockey is already starting to show up.

I am loving the battle of Alberta games, the intensity in games,  and the high scoring individual efforts by Matthews and McDavid. But ultimately this experiment may implode on itself and burn the hockey season into a dithering exhaustion of emotion, injury and and leave literally nothing left for the real playoffs.