As the COVID-19 pandemic rages on, and NHL has adjusted more than their standard operating procedures to try to pull off a healthy, safe season. On top of restrictions on who has access to players, limits on the size of travel parties for road games, where players can and can’t go on the road, and other similar measures, they league has had to devise an easy way around something well beyond their control: border crossing restrictions.
Because the NHL had to put all of the Canadian teams into one division in order to even get a season off the ground, that forced some realignment within the U.