On March 11, 2020, the World Health Organization declared COVID-19 to be a pandemic, and later that day, the National Basketball Association suspended all games after players tested positive for the disease. One day later, the NHL announced that the 2019–20 season had been paused indefinitely
On May 22, the league and the NHLPA agreed on a basic framework to stage a 24-team playoff tournament behind closed doors, conducted in two neutral "hub" cities to help protect teams from the virus. The details of the plan were announced publicly on May 26. The seeds would be based on each club's points percentage when the season paused on March 12, effectively scrapping the remainder of the regular season. In the opening round of the 24-team playoff format, the top four teams in each conference played each other in a separate Seeding Round-robin to determine the seeding in the First Round.
The eight lower seeded teams in each conference played in the Qualifying Round, a best-of-five series to advance to the next round. The First Round through to the Finals remained as best-of-seven series.[3] On July 10, along with the ratification of an extension to the collective bargaining agreement, the NHL and the NHLPA formally agreed to begin the playoffs on August 1 (concluding no later than early October), with games being hosted by Edmonton (Western Conference early rounds, Conference Finals, and Stanley Cup Finals) and Toronto (Eastern Conference early rounds).
This was the franchise's fifth appearance in the Finals. They won the Stanley Cup in 1999 before losing the Finals in 2000. They also made two appearances as the Minnesota North Stars in 1981 and 1991. During the offseason, Dallas signed forwards Corey Perry and Joe Pavelski as well as defenceman Andrej Sekera in free agency.[8][9][10] The team also re-signed defenceman Taylor Fedun and forward Jason Dickinson.[11][12] The team made no trades during the regular season.