With free agent frenzy long over, and the dog days of the offseason officially arriving, noteworthy hockey news has more or less dried up. While Bantering Points normally runs from the first day of training camp until breakup day, the pandemic has created for a very odd posting schedule From now until the opening of training camp for the 2020-21 season, Bantering Points will move to a three times per week (usually Monday, Wednesday, Friday) format, so expect that moving forward. Here are today’s news and links:

Rangers News:

• Larry Brooks relays word on the league’s current plans as it pertains to the 20202-21 campaign (NY Post)
• Jason Katinas notes that depending on how important an 82 game season is to the NHL, achieving that may prevent Rangers’ players from participating in the 2022 Winter Olympics (Blue Line Station)
• Steve Paulus ponders how the one year, $5.2 million contract the Buffalo Sabres signed RFA forward Sam Reinhart to will affect negotiations with Ryan Strome (Blue Line Station)
• Tom Castro compares this current offseason with the splashy moves that dominated the Rangers’ 2019 offseason (The Hockey Writers)
• Jim Bay hears that the Blueshirts appeared three times on the list of Doc Emrick’s top ten NHL calls (Empire Sports Media)/

Around the NHL:

• Adam Gretz attempts to pinpoint landing spots for some of the best free agents yet to sign with teams (NBC Sports)
• Luke Fox lists ten teams pressed against the salary cap and proposes how they might relieve themselves (Sportsnet)
• The Calgary Flames agreed to a one year, $875,000 contract with forward Josh Leivo (TSN)/