Are you ready for this? Following a four-month pause, the NHL is set to return with three days of exhibition games, a qualifying round and then four rounds of Stanley Cup playoff action. To include teams that were fighting for a playoff position, when the regular season was cancelled with 189 games left on the schedule, the 2020 NHL playoff field was expanded from 16 to 24 teams. The top four in each conference received a BYE into the quarterfinals.
Those eight teams are playing two round robin series to determine the top seeds for the remaining playoff rounds.