The NHL has faced numerous hurdles with COVID-19 since the season's start just over a month ago. The league has postponed more than 30 games so far, and nearly a hundred players have appeared on the COVID-19 protocol list from 27 different teams.

Despite the setbacks, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly is confident the league will complete its 56-game schedule and finish the campaign on time.

"We have postponed and had to reschedule 35 games. We've been able to do that fairly seamlessly," Daly told ESPN's Greg Wyshynski and Emily Kaplan on Monday. "I hope that the number of postponements and rescheduling goes down as we go forward, but we haven't even really eaten at all into the buffer period we built into the end of the schedule."

Prior to the beginning of the season on Jan. 13, the NHL announced that the regular season would end on May 8, with playoffs starting May 11. The Stanley Cup is expected to be awarded by July 9.

The league has yet to reschedule some postponed games, and the postseason may get pushed back to make up contests at the end of the regular season. Daly said the league prepared for this scenario and included some flexibility when it created the schedule.

"We've always said we want to be done by the middle of July," Daly said. "Whether that's July 10 or whether that's July 20, I couldn't tell you. As I sit here, we have some flexibility. But that's certainly the zone that we're targeting."

Eighteen teams have already played at least a quarter of their season (14 games), while a club like the New Jersey Devils has hit the ice for just nine contests.

With a wave of players being affected by COVID-19 since the season's start, Daly added he isn't shocked by the numbers given the league's size.

"Quite frankly, we have a lot of players involved, right? We have a lot more than the NBA - around 725 players on active rosters plus taxi squad players plus AHL players. There are just a lot of players around," Daly said.

"Would I have hoped for less cases and fewer outbreaks among clubs? The answer to that is yes. Whether I can say it was a surprise to me, I'm not sure it necessarily is."

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