On Tuesday, the sports world received the best news it’s heard in quite some time: hockey is coming back. NHL commissioner Gary Bettman announced the regular season has officially come to a close and that the league will resume play with a 24-team playoff format.
Based on the regular-season rankings, the seventh seed New York Islanders will take on the 10th seed Florida Panthers in a best-of-five qualifying series.
This will be a particularly interesting series to follow: The offensively strong and creative Panthers meet one of the best defensive teams in the league in the Islanders.