The 56-game 2020-21 National Hockey League season was one like the Boston Bruins and league has ever had to endure. The coronavirus pandemic that shut down the 2019-20 season, it changed things for the last two seasons.
As the Stanley Cup playoffs are closing to reaching the Stanley Cup Final, with their two Semifinal Round series coming to an end by this coming weekend. Monday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning took a 3-2 series lead with an 8-0 rout of the New York Islanders at Amalie Arena in Florida. The Bolts will try and close out the series Wednesday night back at the Nassau Coliseum.
The other series between the Montreal Canadiens and Vegas Golden Knights is tied at 2 as the two teams get ready for a pivotal Game 5 tonight at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas.
Monday, it was reported that this week, the NHL is expected to send all teams a copy draft of the 2021-22 season schedule. They will actually get two copies, one for the Olympics and one without Olympics, which are currently slated to begin February 4 in Beijing, China.
The NHL will be sending a draft of the new schedule to all teams this week. Season in planning to start on October 12th.
— John Shannon (@JShannonhl) June 21, 2021
In fact, they will be sending 2 drafts. One with Olympics in… and one with Olympics out.
What all NHL fans, as well as all the teams as well, are hoping for is a return to an 82-game regular season, as well as a return to the regular divisions, which brings back some natural rivalries.
This was the Bruins were in the East Division, which means mostly made up with teams from the Metropolitan Division. The only team that was in the Black and Gold’s Atlantic Division that joined them in the newly realigned division for this season was the Buffalo Sabres.
With the league hopefully returning to the divisions before the pandemic, the Bruins should get the Lightning and Canadiens back, along with the much-improved Florida Panthers and the Toronto Maple Leafs.
NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly reportedly said that the full official schedule should be released sometime around the third week of July. the NHL is hoping for an October 12 Opening Night.