Let's try to figure out when each Round 1 series of the Stanley Cup playoffs will begin

I got out my notebook this morning, checked TV and arena schedules and made my best guess.

Good morning.

As of right now we don’t know the NHL playoff schedule, we won’t know it in full, in fact, until at least April 17th when the NHL regular season ends.

And that’s OK, but as someone who is flying to Dallas on April 20, and hoping that I’ll be arriving in time for Game 1 of a series at American Airlines Center, I’d like a bit more certainty in my life.

So, this morning, after walking the kid to school, I did my best to try and reverse engineer when and where the NHL playoffs will start for each series.

Before we get too deep into this, remember this is reverse engineering, not reporting. All of this information I’m working on is public if you know where to look.

Again, this is thought exercise, not to be taken as gospel.

First some facts:

• The NHL playoffs will begin on April 19.

• The NHL regular season ends on April 17, with six of the likely 16 playoff teams playing the date.

Now some observations:

• TNT’s broadcasting schedule currently has a 6 pm and 9 pm window for games on April 19. There are no games on TBS scheduled for that day, so unless that schedule changes — which is possible, currently it’s just filled with Big Bang Theory reruns — there will be two series starting on the 19th.

• Between ESPN and ESPN2, there are four game slots April 20 — 12:30, 3 pm, 7 pm, and 10 pm, assuming no other games are added to the schedule, four series will start that day.

• There are also four TV windows on April 21st, which we can assume will be Game 2 of the two series that start on the 19th, and potentially Game 1s of the two series yet to start.

Still with me?

Ok, now let’s look at the hosts for Game 1, which is nearly locked up.

Maybe the Edmonton Oilers will catch the Los Angeles Kings, but aside from that, it seems unlikely to me that we won’t have the Winnipeg Jets, Dallas Stars, Vegas Golden Knights, Kings, Toronto Maple Leafs, Tampa Bay Lightning, Washington Capitals, and Carolina Hurricanes as higher seeds in Round 1.

So let’s trying to build a schedule and see how this might shake out, if we assume current seeds hold.

The Maple Leafs, Lightning, Capitals, Hurricanes, and Kings all play on Thursday, April 17, and while the league typically won’t make teams play with just a one-day break before the playoffs, it feels inevitable someone will have to.

Because the Kings are at home on Thursday, and because of the TV slots, they become the team for this exercise most likely to play on Saturday — plus with them likely playing Edmonton, Canadian TV will love the Oilers to open Saturday night.

So, with that in mind, that leaves Winnipeg, Dallas, Los Angeles and Vegas available to host Game 1 on the 19th, in theory.

But then we go to the arena schedule and note that there is a Bachman Turner-Overdrive concert on April 19 in Winnipeg, meaning the Jets can’t play a home game that day. T-Mobile Arena is hosting a WWE event on the 19th and 21st, meaning the Golden Knights must play on the 20th.

That means the Dallas Stars and Los Angeles Kings would host Game 1s on April 19th, with Dallas likely in the 6 pm ET window and Los Angeles in the 9 pm ET window on TNT.

That takes us to April 20, where we have four TV windows — three on ESPN and one on ESPN2.

The 7 pm window is on ESPN2 because of Sunday night baseball, so we can assume this is the least-desirable slot. Which is why American TV, would probably be thrilled to have Toronto vs. Ottawa in that window, and Canadian TV will be happy with that game in primetime.

The Washington Capitals and Alexander Ovechkin make the most sense to kick off ESPN’s Sunday hockey schedule at 12:30, so Washington vs. the Montreal Canadiens fits into that window on ESPN.

We also can pencil the Vegas Golden Knights into the late night window, starting at 10 pm, because this is the only day they can play Game 1 because of WWE commitments.

That leaves just the 3 pm ET window remaining, which could be the start of the Winnipeg-Minnesota series, but I’m going to guess ESPN executives would be more thrilled with the battle of Florida in that slot.

So we will head to Tampa at that time.

That leaves the Winnipeg-Minnesota series and Carolina-New Jersey series to start on April 21.

There are four TV windows on April 21 — 7 pm and 9:30 pm on ESPN and 7:30 pm and 10 pm on ESPN2.

With three Western Conference series that day, we can assume Carolina-New Jersey will be at 7 pm ET, while Dallas-Colorado will likely be the 7:30 slot for geography and viewership reasons.

That would put Winnipeg-Minnesota at 9:30 pm on ESPN, and Los Angeles vs. Edmonton in the 10 pm ET time slot on ESPN2.

That leaves the following potential schedule for April 19 through 21st:

April 19

Game 1: Dallas Stars vs. Colorado Avalanche, 6 pm ET, TNT

Game 1: Los Angeles Kings vs. Edmonton Oilers, 9 pm ET, TNT

April 20:

Game 1: Washington Capitals vs. Montreal Canadiens, 12:30 ET, ESPN

Game 1: Tampa Bay Lightning vs. Florida Panthers, 3 pm ET, ESPN

Game 1: Toronto Maple Leafs vs. Ottawa Senators, 7 pm ET, ESPN2

Game 1: Vegas Golden Knights vs. St. Louis Blues, 10 pm ET, ESPN

April 21:

Game 1: Carolina Hurricanes vs. New Jersey Devils, 7 pm ET, ESPN

Game 2: Dallas Stars vs. Colorado Avalanche, 7:30 pm ET, ESPN2

Game 1: Winnipeg Jets vs. Minnesota Wild, 9:30 pm ET, ESPN

Game 2: Los Angeles Kings vs. Edmonton Oilers, 10 pm ET, ESPN2

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This is about as far I’m willing to go right now, there are too many other moving parts to try and map out the entire series. But at least, maybe, this gives you an idea of what your plans might look like on that first weekend.

Of course, if you see any flaws/notable problems with this, please let me know in the comments and we can check it out.