The Winnipeg Jets open the season on January 14 against the Calgary Flames. That’s in two days. This season has been weird. I do not think that I have to explain why there will be no pre-season games for the NHL this season. The Jets, like all other teams, have been having instra-squad scrimmages which allowed their AHL teams to also get in some sort of semblance of some pre-season games.
The biggest thing hanging over the NHL this season is safety. Teams have already had to shut down practices and miss time due to contact tracing and exposures. Part of the issue is no matter how careful teams are being if they have players with kids in in-person school, they will have more contacts and a higher probability to bring COVID-19 into the home. If a player has a spouse who is working, it is the same. Unlike with the bubble which was essentially a sealed off part of Edmonton or Toronto. The NHL no longer has that and exposures will happen.
The NHL will have a tall order on its hands when it tries to return. They have to contain a virus while travelling with players in close contact with each other and lots of aerosols.
On another note, Mathieu Perreault was waived by the Winnipeg Jets. While I like Perreault as a player his cap hit is simply too large for his role in a flat-cap era. By waiving him they can assign him to the taxi squad and save about a million dollars on his salary cap hit. He will be useful to the Jets on the taxi squad if he is assigned there and it should work out as a net positive for them during the last year of his contract.
