When Does the NHL Regular Season End?

It’s hard to believe, but the NHL regular season is coming to an end. Here’s a look at when it ends and what to expect in the playoffs.

When does the NHL regular season end?

The NHL regular season ends on April 11th.

How many games are in the NHL regular season?

The NHL regular season is 82 games long, which is broken down into a home-and-away series between each of the league’s 31 teams. Each team plays every other team twice at home and twice away, for a total of 82 games. The regular season usually starts in early October and runs until early April.

What is the Stanley Cup playoffs?

The Stanley Cup playoffs (French: Les séries éliminatoires de la Coupe Stanley) is an elimination tournament in the National Hockey League (NHL) consisting of four rounds of best-of-seven series to determine the league champion and the winner of the Stanley Cup. Eight teams from each of the two conferences qualify for the playoffs based on regular season points totals. These 16 teams compete in the playoffs, with a playoff bracket that expands and contracts as each round progresses. After the first two rounds, the four divisional champions are matched up against one another in the Conference Finals, with each conference winner then advancing to face off against the other for the Stanley Cup.

How many teams make the Stanley Cup playoffs?

The top three teams in each division automatically qualify for the playoffs, with the next two teams in each conference (wild card) qualifying as well. In all, 16 teams make the playoffs. The Stanley Cup playoffs consist of four rounds of best-of-seven series.

What is the Stanley Cup?

The Stanley Cup is the championship trophy of the National Hockey League (NHL). It is the oldest existing trophy to be awarded to a professional sports franchise in North America, and the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF) considers it to be one of the “most important championships available to the sport”. The trophy was commissioned in 1892 as the Dominion Hockey Challenge Cup and is named after Lord Stanley of Preston, the Governor General of Canada who donated it as an award to Canada’s top-ranking amateur hockey club. The entire Stanley family supported the sport, the sons and daughters all playing and promoting the game. The first Cup was awarded in 1893 to Montreal HC; Sir Frederick Arthur Stanley was present to witness the event.

What are the NHL awards?

The National Hockey League hands out a number of awards each year to recognize its players, coaches, and teams. Some awards are voted on by the League’s broadcasters and writers, while others are given out by the League itself.

The most prestigious award is the Stanley Cup, which is awarded to the team that wins the NHL playoffs. The other main awards are the Hart Trophy (given to the league’s most valuable player), the Calder Trophy (given to the top rookie), and the Vezina Trophy (given to the top goaltender).

There are also a number of team awards, such as the Presidents’ Trophy (given to the team with the best regular season record), and the Jack Adams Award (given to the coach of the year).

How many players are on an NHL team?

An NHL team has 20 players on its roster, made up of 18 skaters and two goaltenders.

What is the NHL salary cap?

The NHL salary cap is the maximum amount of money that a team can spend on player salaries. The salary cap was first introduced in the 2005-06 season, and it has been increased every year since then. For the 2019-20 season, the salary cap is $81.5 million.

What is free agency in the NHL?

At the end of each NHL season, teams must decide which pending free agents (players whose contracts have expired) to re-sign and which ones to let go. Free agency offers players the chance to sign with any team in the league, with the terms of their contract determined by the open market.

NHL free agency typically begins on July 1st, after the Stanley Cup Final has ended and teams have had a chance to assess their rosters. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the start of free agency was pushed back to October 9th, 2020.

During free agency, teams can sign unrestricted free agents (UFA) – players who are at least 28 years old or have been in the league for at least seven seasons – to contracts of any length. Restricted free agents (RFA), meanwhile, are players who are 26 years old or younger, or have played between three and six seasons in the NHL. RFAs can sign offer sheets with other teams, but their original team has a chance to match that offer and keep the player.

Once a team has signed a player during free agency, they are typically committed to that contract for several years. For example, if a team signs an unrestricted free agent to a five-year deal worth $5 million per year, they will be responsible for paying that player $25 million over the course of those five seasons – even if that player is traded or released before their contract expires.

The NHL regular season typically runs from October through early April, with most teams playing between 82 and 84 games. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the 2020-21 season will be shortened to 56 games per team. The Stanley Cup Playoffs usually begin in mid-April and can last until early June – though they too were affected by COVID-19 and will begin on May 11th, 2021.

What is the NHL draft?

The National Hockey League Entry Draft is an annual meeting in which every NHL team selects the rights to unsigned amateur players who meet eligibility requirements. The draft order is determined by each team’s standings at the end of the previous season. The first overall pick is given to the team with the fewest points and so on.

Teams are allowed to trade both their picks and/or the rights to players for other picks, players or prospects. Once a team has selected a player they are saddled with his contract, usually three years at a set salary, unless he is traded away or released. A small number of highly sought after 18-year-olds are signed to “entry-level” contracts which slide, meaning that the maximum salary they can make kicks in after they play a certain number of games in the NHL (usually 10).