Golden Knights look forward to normal 2021-22 season

Mark Stone missed stepping into Madison Square Garden this season.

Or playing in front of a sold-out crowd in Toronto. Or returning home to Winnipeg to see family and friends.

There was so much that he and the rest of the Golden Knights would have experienced in a normal season. But the NHL schedule was condensed into 56 regular-season games, and teams only played within their division. COVID-19 restrictions limited where they could go and what they could do.

The league hopes that will change for the 2021-22 season. And the Knights hope that means they will be able to experience the working life they had before the pandemic.

Commissioner Gary Bettman said Monday the season will start in the first half of October — “it’ll probably be in the double digits” — and the schedule will be released after the Stanley Cup Final but before the NHL draft, which begins July 23.

“It was definitely a tough year for players all over the league and their families with rules and restrictions and no fans in some arenas,” Knights left wing Max Pacioretty said. “I thought we handled it very well right through up until the very end.”

Including the regular season and first two rounds of the playoffs, the Knights played Minnesota 15 times, Colorado 14 times and the other five West Division teams eight times each.

It will be a change of pace for the Knights to see former division foes Calgary, Edmonton and Vancouver again. Or Sidney Crosby and Alex Ovechkin. Or the defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning.

They’re used to seeing the NHL’s full picture during the regular season. This year, they only got a snapshot.

“I do miss going out East,” right wing Alex Tuch said. “I miss traveling to Canada and stuff and all over the country. It’ll be nice to get back to it.”

The Knights also will be happy to have a little more down time next season.

The NHL is expected to return to its normal 82-game schedule, but it won’t be as crammed as this season’s was. The Knights played 82 games in 185 days in their last full season in 2018-19, averaging a game every 2.26 days. They played 56 in 119 days this season, or a game every 2.13 days.

That number drops to 1.96 by removing the team’s nine-day COVID-19 pause. It would have been even lower if the NHL didn’t extend the regular season because of postponements.

Coach Pete DeBoer said he’s looking forward to more practice days after the team scrapped a lot of skates to prioritize rest. Defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said it will be good for players to get extra time to heal, too.

“For some guys, for myself, when you have an injury it takes a lot longer because you’re not getting the opportunity to rest,” Pietrangelo said. “When those things linger, it isn’t fun. In a normal year, you have opportunities to take breaks. This year we didn’t.”

One thing that might stay, at least somewhat, is series-style scheduling.

The Knights typically played the same team twice in the same city before moving on to another opponent. It was done to limit travel during the pandemic, but players liked the change. The NHL Players Association’s annual poll said 66.3 percent of the 442 members surveyed wanted the format to stay.

Deputy commissioner Bill Daly said the league will “incorporate it on an increased basis going forward,” but can’t do it all the time during its normal schedule format in which many teams play each other an odd number of times.

“It was kind of nice to come in, new city, and just unload your suitcase for four days instead of not unpacking nothing because you’re leaving right after the game for another city and you’re always living in your suitcase,” left wing Jonathan Marchessault said. “It was kind of fun to just be a little more comfortable.”

Perhaps the biggest change will be having fans back for the entire season.

T-Mobile Arena was only at full capacity for six playoff games, and the largest road crowd the Knights played against was 10,495.

“We got to do what we love, which is play hockey,” Stone said. “We got to hang out as a team for the majority of the season and have that camaraderie. I definitely want to get back to normal.”

Contact Ben Gotz at bgotz@reviewjournal.com. Follow @BenSGotz on Twitter.