Wild 'anxious to play' as start of 2020-21 season draws near

The 2020-21 NHL season is finally a go.
More than three months since crowning the Tampa Bay Lightning as its 2020 Stanley Cup champion, the League and its players came to an agreement on Sunday to play a truncated 56-game season that is scheduled to begin on Jan. 13.
And while cold winter nights in Minnesota will once again be filled with hockey soon -- a comforting thought for many -- the look and feel of the 2020-21 season will be very different than ones in the past, and what they will look like again in the future.

The upcoming campaign sure seems like a "one-time only" production, but it's one that teams and general managers, like the Wild's Bill Guerin, have been getting ready for for weeks or even months, ever since the club was eliminated from the Edmonton bubble in August.
"I'm really comfortable," Guerin said. "We've been in working on this under assumptions for quite some time and we just wanted to be prepared. I think we're pretty close to what came about [on Sunday]. Whatever it is, whatever happens along the way, I think everybody has learned to be flexible and expect the unexpected.
"We'll be ready to go. We know it's a different world that we're living in and we're working in, so we'll just have to be able to roll with the punches."
Everything, from the empty arenas to the makeup of rosters to the schedules and the divisions will look different in 2020-21.
First, the timeline.
Teams that did not participate in the return to play back in the summer will be allowed to begin training camp on Dec. 31. Everyone else will begin on Jan. 3, with Opening Night coming 10 days later.
The NHL's trade deadline will be April 12 and the regular season will conclude on May 8.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs will revert to a 16-team divisional format, meaning the top-4 clubs in each division will reach the playoffs (no wild cards). Those four clubs will play each other in the first and second rounds.
The Stanley Cup Finals will conclude in mid-July, with the Expansion Draft for the Seattle Kraken taking place July 21, the NHL Draft occurring July 23-24 and the first day of NHL free agency commencing on July 28.
After that, the NHL's schedule will return to normalcy, with the 2021-22 season dropping the puck at its traditional place in early October.
Game schedules, as well as start times, are expected to be released in the coming days and will be available as soon as it's completed on Wild.com.
Fans will not be allowed inside arenas, including Xcel Energy Center ... at least to start the season. The hope is that at some point during the season, at least a limited number of fans will be allowed inside arenas, but those decisions will be dictated by protocols and guidance from local officials. More information on that will be released as it becomes available.
Perhaps the most noticeable change for fans will be who the Wild is playing.
While normal Central Division rivals like Colorado and St. Louis are certainly familiar foes, Wild fans better prepare for lots of games against Pacific Division teams, Arizona, Anaheim, Los Angeles, San Jose and Vegas.
Those eight clubs will make up the NHL's currently named 'West' division, although the name is subject to change as the season draws nearer.
The seven other teams in Minnesota's makeshift division will makeup the entirety of the Wild's 2020-21 regular season schedule, as teams will play games only against divisional foes. That means eight games -- four home and four away -- against each of the seven other teams.
That could make for some late nights for the Wild and for fans hoping to catch a glimpse of the team on television.
"It doesn't concern me," Guerin said. "We travel in great planes, we stay in great hotels, we eat properly. There will be plenty of time to acclimate to different time zones. Everybody travels, unless you're in the east. If you're in the west, your travel is tough and that's just the way it is. I'm not worried about it at all."
Wild.com will take a deeper look at Minnesota's new temporary home later this week.
The NHL's other divisions include a temporary "Central," which includes Carolina, Chicago, Columbus, Dallas, Detroit, Florida, Nashville and Tampa Bay.
The "East" division features Boston, Buffalo, New Jersey, both the New York Rangers and Islanders, Philadelphia, Pittsburgh and Washington.
Due to COVID-19-related restrictions regarding crossing the border, fans in Canada will be treated to a "North" division featuring all Canadian teams: Calgary, Edmonton, Montreal, Ottawa, Toronto, Vancouver and Winnipeg.

With the American Hockey League slated to begin play in February, at the very earliest, clubs will have "taxi squads."
NHL teams are typically permitted to carry 23 players on its roster at any time, and that will be the case this season as well. But teams will also have a handful of extra players on hand -- between four and six -- in case of injury or illness.
Teams will be required to carry three goaltenders at all times, meaning free-agent addition Cam Talbot will be joined by Kaapo Kahkonen and likely Andrew Hammond, who signed with the club last week after it was announced that Alex Stalock is out indefinitely.
The presence of a taxi squad should make the competition for roster spots even more competitive as training camp begins, especially along the periphery of the roster.
"It's hard. Every player, no matter what age, what level, wherever you live, everybody just wants to play," Guerin said "But there are certain things that we have to do and certain roles for everybody. The part of possibly being on a taxi squad; hey, it's better that not playing at all or not being around at all."
Guerin said he doesn't expect the Wild to dabble any further in free agency before the season begins, but also said he doesn't expect any of the current roster to opt-out of the 2020-21 season, which every player has the right to do.
That means that, with the exception of Stalock and forward Mats Zuccarello, who had surgery on his arm last month, the Wild has a pretty good idea of what it's Opening Night roster may look like. Guerin said he hopes to have both players back at some point this season, with Zuccarello seemingly closer to a return than Stalock.
With a number of new faces in the mix, including Talbot, Kirill Kaprizov, Marcus Johansson, Nick Bonino and Nick Bjugstad, Minnesota will focus on meshing its new players with the rest of its returning group.
That is a process that has already begun in pre-camp workouts at TRIA Rink in downtown St. Paul, but one that will commence officially in less than two weeks.
"The guys have had some good skates and are doing what they can," Guerin said. "I trust these guys that they're all gonna come in in great shape and ready to go. I think they're all anxious to play."