NHL SEA WaFd Bank Weekly Warmup Jan 11

The first game of the official 2020-2021 NHL regular season will start at 2:35 p.m. Wednesday when the Pittsburgh Penguins visit the Philadephia Flyers, one of five games on opening night. Can't wait.
Let's drop the puck on our first
WaFd Weekly
Warmup of the new season with a special "By the Numbers" edition. With a primary assist from the NHL Public Relations brain trust, here's a preview of the upcoming season by various statistics, records, events and fun facts:

960 - Combined goals in the 2019-20 regular season by the League's four highest-scoring teams, who are distributed across the four new divisions for 2020-21 (Central: Tampa Bay; East: Washington; North: Toronto; West: Colorado).
868 - Total games scheduled to be played during this abbreviated regular season.

747 - Number of all-time regular-season games between the Toronto Maple Leafs and Montreal Canadiens, a number that will reach 757 in 2020-21 to surpass the Boston Bruins vs. Canadiens for the most in NHL history. The Blackhawks and Red Wings are set to go from 739 to 747 all-time meetings by season's end.
68 - The percentage of a normal NHL schedule that teams will play during the 2020-21 season.
50 - Consecutive seasons as division rivals for Boston and Buffalo, spanning the Sabres' entire history from 1970-71 to 2020-21. That is the NHL's longest active run in the same division and one of 10 groupings that have been together for at least 27 consecutive seasons. 42 - Most all-time Stanley Cup wins among the four new divisions (North: 42, East: 25, Central: 21, West: 6).

16 - Like every other hockey spring, the Stanley Cup champion will have to win four best-of-seven series, which calculates to a sweet 16 victories.
14 - Cumulative First Round appearances from 2018 to 2020 by teams in the West, tops among the new divisions (Central: 13, East: 13, North: 8).
11 - Cumulative Stanley Cup Final appearances since 2005-06 by teams in the East, tops among the new divisions (Central: 10, West: 6, North: 3).

9 - Postseason matchups from 2020 are in the same division for 2020-21: East - 4 (NYR-CAR, NYI-WSH, CAR-BOS, NYI-PHI), West - 3 (ARI-COL, DAL-COL, DAL-VGK), North - 1 (WPG-CGY) and Central - 1 (CBJ-TBL).
7 - Most teams from one of the new divisions that reached the 2020 Stanley Cup Qualifiers (Central: 7 of 8, North: 6 of 7, East: 6 of 8, West: 5 of 8).
6 - New intradivisional opponents for Winnipeg, the only team in the NHL that did not retain a divisional foe for the 2020-21 season.

5 - No matter all of the changes in schedules and divisional alignment (see No. 4 below), the games will still feature five "skaters" (three forward and two defenseman) when at full strength in front of their goalies. Five-on-five play is the heartbeat of the sport and that type of time-on-ice is what coaches, scouts and analytics experts tend to value the most in terms of evaluating players.
4- The number of divisions in the league, renamed this year and only featuring divisional games. For a preview of those divisions (names, teams, new faces, season outlooks), check back to
this space
for the Western Conference Tuesday and Eastern Conference Wednesday.
3 - Playoff series in which North Division teams will face one another in 2021, equaling the total number of all-Canadian playoff series contested over the last 15 years (2020: CGY vs. WPG; 2015: CGY vs. VAN; 2015: MTL vs. OTT).

2- Number of games that will be played in Lake Tahoe this season. The league officially announced the NHL Outdoora at Lake Tahoe event Monday. It will feature two regular-season games along North America's largest alpine lake, which borders California and Nevada. The Colorado Avalanche will face Vegas Feb. 20 and Philadelphia plays Boston Feb. 21. Both games are noon Pacific and will be broadcast on NBC with no fans but a stunning backdrop that situates on the lakefront 18th fairway of the golf course at the Edgewood Tahoe Resort.
1 - Kraken fans, we are one season away from the Seattle squad debuting on-ice for the 2021-22 NHL regular season.