Let’s face it; most players would probably admit that an 82-game season can be a slog.
Teams can intermittent breaks, yet that’s often at the cost of tough stretches. That may still be the case, but ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun has quite the report about the NHL accepting the NHLPA’s request for a five-day “bye week” beginning in 2016-17.
It looks like the tweak would fit right around the “dog days” of the regular season.
The league will fit the 5-day bye break into schedules for each team between Jan. 1 and Feb. 28 next season...
— Pierre LeBrun (@PierreVLeBrun) November 19, 2015
LeBrun reports that the players were able to gain this tweak as part of the changes to the All-Star Game format.
A little more from LeBrun:
Players won’t have to report for practice until after 4 p.m. on the fifth day if they have a game on the sixth day, a source said was part of the agreement. If they don’t have a game on the sixth day, they would have all of the fifth day off.
LeBrun also discusses the bye week format in this Travis Hamonic-heavy edition of TSN’s Insider Trading, which you can watch here. (His bit begins around the 2:38 mark.)
How do you feel about this idea? Dare we wonder if a bye week could ever be used around playoff time as well if this idea really takes off?