The National Hockey League has announced dates and locations for the return of hockey in the month of August, with the St. Louis Blues, by virtue of having one of the top four records in the Western Conference when the coronavirus pandemic halted the season in March, dropped into a four-team, three-game, round-robin tournament to decide seeding for the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
On August 2nd, the Blues will take on Central Division rival Colorado, with a meeting against the Vegas Golden Knights on August 6th and the Dallas Stars on August 9th. The records between the teams will determine spots 1 through 4 in the West, with spots 5 through 8 decided by head-to-head series matching up the teams that finished in the 5th through 12th spots in the regular season standings.
For the Blues and their Western Conference brethren, all games going at least through the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs will be played at Edmonton’s Rogers Place, the home of the Oilers. The Eastern Conference will play its games at the home of the Maple Leafs, Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena.
Western Conference best-of-five series to determine who reaches the Round of 16 will be Chicago vs. Edmonton, Winnipeg vs. Calgary, Nashville vs. Arizona, and Vancouver vs. Minnesota.
St. Louis is aiming to win another Stanley Cup, having claimed the iconic trophy for the first-time in the 50-plus year history of the franchise in June 2019, with a dramatic Game 7 win in Boston.