Hockey is coming back! The NHL and NHLPA have officially approved plans for a 2020-21 season! So with so much information out there, we thought we’d combine it in one handy place.

Training camp opens on Jan. 3 – Dec. 31 for the seven teams that didn’t play in the 2020 playoffs. Players are allowed to opt out of the season, too: the opt-out deadline is Dec. 27 for the playoff teams and Dec. 24 for the non-playoff teams.

There will be no exhibition games.

The season will begin Jan. 13, last 56 games (played entirely in-division) and end May 8. The playoffs begin May 11 and end by July 15. The first two rounds will be entirely in-division. (The regular season schedule should be out by mid-week if the Canadian provinces sign off on it.)

The Flames will play in an all-Canadian division – the North Division – with Vancouver, Edmonton, Winnipeg, Toronto, Ottawa and Montreal.

The trade deadline is Apr. 12.

Training camps are limited to 36 skaters and unlimited goalies. (Excluding junior players and full-season European loans, the Flames have 37 skaters and five goalies under contract for 2020-21.)

Teams are limited to 23-man rosters with a $81.5 million cap ceiling during the season. There is also a four (minimum) to six player (maximum) taxi squad, whose players will be considered to be in the AHL for cap purposes but will stay with the NHL to ease potential call-ups. (They’d count against the cap if called up, and waiver eligible players would need to clear waivers to go from the NHL roster to the taxi squad.)

For the curious, Dillon Dube and Juuso Valimaki will be waiver exempt this season – Dube is exempt until he plays in 74 games, while Valimaki is exempt all season. They could, in theory, be on the NHL roster for every single game but placed on the taxi squad for the non game days – the taxi squad would meet the requirements if they kept four other players on it the rest of the time. Doing this could save the Flames up to $865,000 in cap space, since cap space is calculated daily based on the players on the roster as of 3 p.m. MT – their projected space otherwise is about $223,000.

Eligible entry level contracts slide unless that player plays 7 NHL games in 2020-21. (It’s usually 10.) Impacted Flames players would be Dustin Wolf, Jakob Pelletier and, presuming he signs this season, Connor Zary.

As of Feb. 1, teams can request players with no-move clauses – Jakob Markstrom and Milan Lucic for the Flames – waive those clauses for the expansion draft. The deadline for these requests is July 13.

Players on expiring one year deals can re-sign as of March 12. Players on expiring multi-year deals can re-sign whenever they want.

For expansion purposes, the player exposure requirements for defensemen and forwards are being pro-rated: it’s 27 GP this season or 54 GP combined between last two seasons.

The buyout window opens 24 hours after the playoffs end and lasts until July 27.

The expansion draft is July 21. The entry draft is July 23-24. Free agency begins July 28.