The NHL and NHL Players' Association officially ironed out the final details of its 24-team Return to Play format, which is another positive step in the right direction as both sides look to reach an overall agreement on resuming play.
Here's a brief rundown of the most notable items from Thursday's announcement:
— The qualifying round will be composed of a best-of-5 series while the four other rounds will be best-of-7.
— The top four teams from each conference will play each other in a round-robin format to determine the No. 1-4 seeds. Regular season points percentage will serve as the tiebreaker.