CHICAGO --Patrick Kane said he'll be excited to watch the Stanley Cup Qualifiers when he isn't playing in them with the Chicago Blackhawks.
"It'll be similar to those March Madness tournaments when you can watch college basketball all day and that's pretty much all you do, except this time it'll be hockey, so it'll be fun for me to watch," the forward said Friday. "It looks like it's going to be an amazing schedule if you're a hockey fan. It looks like you'll be able to watch like six games a day, if I'm correct. You'll be able to watch hockey all day. Pretty much every couple of hours it seems a new game is on. I think it's cool."
It will be a busy slate of games for the 24-team Cup Qualifiers and the first two rounds of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, with the 12 Eastern Conference teams based at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto and the 12 Western Conference teams based at Rogers Place in Edmonton.
Each arena will host as many as three games a day with a potential 52 being played over nine days during the Qualifiers, which include eight best-of-5 series and two four-team round-robins. The start times for the Qualifiers in Toronto will be noon, 4 p.m. and 8 p.m. (ET), and the start times for the Qualifiers in Edmonton will be 2 p.m., 6:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. (ET), which could change by up to 30 minutes.
Edmonton will also hold the Eastern Conference Final, Western Conference Final and Stanley Cup Final, which is tentatively scheduled to begin Sept. 22 and will end no later than Oct. 4.
Kane led the Blackhawks with 84 points (33 goals, 51 assists) in 70 games before the NHL season was paused March 12 due to concerns surrounding the coronavirus. The Blackhawks (32-30-8, .514 points percentage), the No. 12 seed in the West, will play the No. 5 seed, the Edmonton Oilers (37-25-9, .585) at Rogers Place beginning Aug. 1.
The winner will advance to the playoffs, and the loser will have a chance at the No 1 pick in the 2020 NHL Draft in the Second Phase on the NHL Draft Lottery, to be held Aug. 10.
"One of the best things about the playoffs is when you're hanging in the lounge with the guys, you're watching hockey games, flipping back and forth, seeing what games are close and what games are in overtime," Kane said. "It'll be fun to have options up there."
