Returning to a bubble this season was a non-starter for the NHL. Staging the 2019-20 playoffs in a controlled environment without fans kept COVID-19 at bay — and spared Commissioner Gary Bettman from being booed when he handed the Stanley Cup to the Tampa Bay Lightning — but replicating those conditions wasn’t considered a long-term solution.
“We couldn’t very well ask the players to put themselves in a bubble for six months. We knew that wasn’t going to be something we could even ask,” Bettman said last month before he launched the abbreviated 2020-21 season.