All Agree: Drop the Puck!

Friday was a highly agreeable day for hockey. In a vote put to all players on the league's 31 team rosters, the NHL Players' Association not only approved "Return to Play" health and safety protocols to get closer to a 2020 postseason puck drop, it also ratified a new six-year collective bargaining agreement or CBA that will keep the labor peace through the 2025-26.

Later in the day, the NHL Board of Governors representing each franchise's ownership voted unanimously to approve the new CBA. That translates to a steady owners-players relationship for NHL Seattle's first five seasons.

Plus, the new CBA paves the way for league and players union to determine long-term plans for international and NHL special events including the Winter Olympics, NHL All-Star Game, NHL Winter Classic and NHL Stadium Series. It appears NHLers will be back competing in Olympic play beginning in 2022 after the league sat out the 2018 Winter Olympics in South Korea.

"Today, the NHL and the NHLPA announced a significant agreement that addresses the uncertainty everyone is dealing with, the framework for the completion of the 2019-20 season, and the foundation for the continued long-term growth of our league," said NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman. "I thank NHLPA Executive Director Don Fehr and Special Assistant to the Executive Director Mathieu Schneider, the more than 700 NHL players -- particularly those who worked on our Return to Play Committee -- and the NHL's Board of Governors for coming together under extraordinary circumstances for the good of our game.

"While we have all worked very hard to try to address the risks of COVID-19, we know that health and safety are and will continue to be our priorities. We know that all of our fans are excited about our return to the ice next month, and that has been our goal since we paused our season on March 12."

The Return to Play protocols are health and safety measures for "Phase 3" training camps and the "Phase 4" 24-team postseason to determine the 2020 Stanley Cup champion. NHLPA Director Donald Fehr praised the work of the players' Return to Play Committee of

Ottawa Senators defenseman Ron Hainsey, Edmonton Oilers center Connor McDavid, Winnipeg Jets center Mark Scheifele, Toronto Maple Leafs center John Tavares and and Philadelphia Flyers right wing James van Riemsdyk.

"This agreement is a meaningful step forward for the players and owners, and for our game, in a difficult and uncertain time," Fehr said. "This would not have happened but for the enormous contributions that the players made throughout, particularly those who served on the Negotiating and Return to Play Committees, as well as those on the Executive Board. "

"I also thank Gary Bettman, [Deputy Commissioner] Bill Daly and the NHL staff for their efforts towards finding solutions to the problems we face. Most importantly, we are pleased to be able to bring NHL hockey back to the fans. We look forward to the NHL's continued growth here in North America and on the world stage."

As expected, the NHL officially selected Toronto and Edmonton as the "hub cities" where all practices, games, eating, sleeping and, well, living will take place in protected zones that includes the Toronto and Edmonton NHL arenas. Toronto will host the 12 participating Eastern Conference teams and Edmonton welcomes the Western Conference dozen.

Both cities have hometown teams playing in the tournament, though the hometown players will play and reside in the protected zones just all other teams. League officials determined that without fans attending games, the home-ice advantage was not significant enough to displace all Western teams to Toronto and the Eastern squads to Edmonton, reducing both travel costs and physically taxing miles in the decision.

The NHL plan is to begin training camps in NHL cities Monday, the players will travel to the assigned hub cities July 25 or 26. Games commence Aug. 1. Fans can now ponder actual games and dates their favorite teams will be playing. The NHL announced a full schedule for the Qualifying Round that matches up the No. 5 through No. 12 seeds in each conference (rankings based on standings points percentage per games played the regular season that was deemed final in mid-March with most teams still due to play 10 to 14 games of the 82-game schedule). Qualifying Round series are best-of-five games. Broadcast information and game times are yet to be announced.

The Toronto and Edmonton arena will host as many as three games a day with a potential 52 games being played over nine days during the Qualifying Rounds. The start times for the Qualifiers in Toronto will be 9 a.m., 1 p.m. and 5 p.m. Pacific. The start times for the tripleheaders in Edmonton will be 11 a.m., 3:30 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. Pacific. Game times might shift by up to 30 minutes .

The first day of play at Toronto features Game 1s of best-of-5 Eastern Conference Qualifier series between the Carolina Hurricanes and New York Rangers, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Montreal Canadiens, and the New York Islanders and Florida Panthers. In Edmonton, the hometown Oilers will play the Chicago Blackhawks and the Calgary Flames will play the Winnipeg Jets in Game 1 of their best-of-5 Western Conference Qualifier series.

The league announced game days for the round-robin tournament that will include the top four teams in each conference. In the West, that group is St. Louis, Colorado, Vegas and Dallas at 1-2-3-4. Back in the East, the top four order is Washington, Boston, Tampa Bay and Philadelphia.

The eight teams in each conference victorious during the Qualifying Round will advance to play in the deemed first round of the NHL Playoffs. The freshly determined top four seeds will face winners from specific series: No. 1 plays the winner of the Nos. 8 and 9 seeds; No. 2 plays the winner of Nos. 7 and 10; No. 3 plays the winner of Nos. 6 and 11; No. 4 plays the winner of Nos. 5 and 12. The second round will follow the bracket format in which all top ranked teams were to win their series, then No. 1 would play No. 4 and No. 2 would play No. 3.

Edmonton will host the Eastern Conference Final, Western Conference Final and Stanley Cup Final. The conference finals are tentatively set to begin Sept. 8; the Cup Final is scheduled to begin Sept. 22 and will end no later than Oct. 4.

The eight losing teams in the Qualifying Round will still have a possible silver lining to defeat. After the first NHL Lottery conducted earlier this summer, it was determined one of the eight losing squads will be awarded the No. 1 pick in the 2020 NHL Draft, now rescheduled for Oct. 9 and 10. Each of those teams will have a 12.5 percent chance for the privilege of selecting the consensus top pick, Alex Lafreniere, a star forward for gold-medalist Team Canada at the World Juniors Championship this past winter.