In Red Wings Land

Red Wings believe better health will translate to second-half improvement – mlive.com

“We’ve had to deal with a lot, probably more so than other teams when we had to play through our stretch with guys missing,” Dylan Larkin said. “There is some excitement guys are coming back and hopefully we can get to where we have our full lineup and see what can happen and get on a little run.”

Detroit definitely had to deal with players being out while the team was still playing games in a way that not many other teams had to deal with.

Around the NHL

NHL expects next season to begin on time, ‘fully at normal’
Speaking one day from one year when last season was paused because of the coronavirus pandemic (March 12, 2020), Commissioner Bettman outlined the challenges the NHL has overcome and the reasons to believe it can resume normal business next season. That would include returning to an 82-game schedule with no limitations on fan attendance, and regular divisional alignment after playing a 56-game schedule and temporarily realigning this season because of travel restrictions between the United States and Canada.

Considering the vaccine rollout in the US so far, this seems like a possibility in a way that it didn’t feel it would be in the not too distant past. It would obviously be great to have a return to NHL games the way they were in “the before times.”