NEW YORK, N.Y.—With the Stanley Cup Finals now stretching well into the summer months, the National Hockey League has decided to address its ever-lengthening schedule.

"Right now, the NHL season starts in early October and the playoffs don't end until mid-June," said NHL commissioner Gary Bettman. "If you factor in September training camps, the league really only has two calendar months a year without hockey at this point. We decided we needed to do something about that."

Beginning next season, the NHL will make some notable schedule changes.

"We felt that the logical course of action was to extend the season further," announced Bettman. "June just feels way too early now. Because nothing says 'summer' in Phoenix, Miami or Las Vegas like grabbing your skates, bundling up, and heading down to your local arena for a game of shinny."

Starting next year, the NHL season will become so long that it will actually achieve something never seen before in any other professional sport.

"We're going for a full overlap," beamed Bettman. "People said it couldn't be done, but we're about to prove them wrong. Starting next year, our playoffs will actually stretch into the following season. Genius, right?"

This means that 2017-18 season will begin in October, and finish in late November of 2018, one month into the 2018-19 season (which will itself extend into the season of 2019-20).

"I really don't see how it will be confusing," snapped Bettman. "And suggesting that a 400-calendar-day season is 'oversaturation' just sounds like nervous handwringing to me. This new schedule makes perfect sense. Plus, it's not like our players need some downtime to recover from an incredibly physically demanding, grueling marathon of a sport or anything."