Sabres are a playoff team in a new NHL playoff proposal

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There have been many proposals that the National Hockey League is considering for resuming play, depending on when the league is able to get back to action on the ice. Due to the fact that the NHL, reportedly, does not have business interruption insurance, it sounds like the league is doing everything in their power to finish the 2019-20 regular season.

That may just not be realistic.

Should the NHL have to resume play starting with the playoffs, the Buffalo Sabres could find themselves involved.

Mark Spector from Sportsnet wrote a story on Wednesday about teams around the league bidding for the chance to host playoff games this summer for the league to be able to finish its season. In that story, he referenced that if no more regular season games can be played, the most popular playoff scenario would be to have the top-six teams from each division make the playoffs and play it out for the right to hoist the Stanley Cup.

According to @SportsnetSpec, this is the "most popular" playoff format idea if the NHL can't finish its regular season this summer.It's a format in which the Buffalo Sabres and Anaheim Ducks would be playoff teams, while the NY Rangers would not. https://t.co/bw90ic5Pj0 pic.twitter.com/YHczDylJNY

— Greg Wyshynski (@wyshynski) April 29, 2020

Teams like the New York Rangers and Chicago Blackhawks, who have higher point percentages than the Sabres, have a legitimate gripe that they would not be included in this format. For the Sabres' sake, it would mean the continuation of their season.

The Sabres are currently sixth in the Atlantic Division, meaning they'd play the third-seeded Toronot Maple Leafs in the first round.

Plenty of questions surround this possibility. Is the Sabres-Maple Leafs series as exciting as it sounds without fans in attendance? Would this mean the Sabres' playoff drought is over? What will the hockey look like after a long break? Will the team that wins the Stanley Cup have an asterisk next to their name forever?

It's just one proposal, but this is the most likely outcome should the NHL not be capable of finishing the regular season.

The next time you see the Sabres, it could very well be in the Stanley Cup playoffs.