Washington Capitals: The cons of a 24-team postseason

There are some pros about hockey coming back but there are also cons.

If you want to read a more positive spin on the 24-team playoff, check out the pros of that format here. As we wait for Washington Capitals hockey to come back into our lives, while there are pros about a 24-team postseason, there are also plenty of cons.

For one, is it safe to return to the ice with the novel coronavirus still not completely gone? The curb hasn’t been flattened yet and recently the NHL announced that 11 players tested positive for COVID-19. Thankfully there hasn’t been any news about any Capitals players that tested positive but over in Florida some members of the Tampa Bay Lightning were infected.

Alex Ovechkin has trained in Florida since he and his family have spent the quarantine in his Miami home. He said he’ll be back in D.C. on June 24.

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Another con is if it’s even worth putting players at risk when some players don’t want to play? And if those players that don’t want to play don’t give a 100% effort in the games you’re talking about an early exit and potential chemistry being messed up.

In the end, one fanbase will be happy. But whomever gets to hoist the Stanley Cup will have to deal with other fans saying that the Stanley Cup should get an asterisk next to it with this being the most abnormal hockey season of all time.

I don’t agree with this statement about the asterisk since these 24 teams had to battle a pandemic plus the unknown over the course of the last few months. I don’t have a crystal ball either. I’d like to predict the Caps can get the job done but it’s still too early to tell. None of us have seen the full team together since mid-March and we don’t know which version of the Caps will show up.

Will it be the team that played excellent in the beginning of the season or will it be the team that played inconsistently since the start of the new year? Only time will tell but I think the rest may have helped them a bit.

It’s a positive that hockey and sports in general are starting to come back. Here’s hoping it all works out. Will the NHL get it right with the 24 team postseason? That remains to be seen and only time will tell.

For more information about COVID-19, visit the CDC’s website or the website for your state’s Department of Health.