Some teams don’t like the draft in June as it’s out of order
Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun: Holding the NHL draft in June is losing momentum. NHL commission Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly will give it one more try before reaching a decision. GMs should be a little more open-minded and step outside their comfort zones.
Some GMs don’t like the idea of going off points percentage or the idea that a playoff team could win the Stanley Cup and the draft lottery.
There are issues of trade conditions, but those could be worked out in advance. Another issue is not being able to trade roster players at the draft. The Tampa Bay Lightning will have cap issues and, for example, may want to clear Ondrej Palat’s $5.3 million cap hit for a draft pick. They may not be able to do that if it’s held early. A solution could be for the league to allow ‘future considerations.’
“Some teams just want to resist because they think holding the draft is out of order,” a league executive said Friday. “It really only applies to the playoff teams and the other 15 teams are out, and they’re not even going to play games so it doesn’t impact them at all.”
Teams have no idea what’s going on with the draft
TSN: Bob McKenzie on why there hasn’t been an announcement regarding the 2020 NHL draft: “your guess is as good as ours.”
McKenzie said there are GMs that have no idea what is going, that they haven’t heard anything about the draft.
“And right now there’s still a very strong sense that it’s less likely prior to the resumption of 2019-20 season. But it’s not completely kyboshed just yet. And it seems to me that the entire focus for the NHL and the NHLPA is on these return-to-play protocols, figuring out what the format for return to play would look like, and then figuring out whether to slot the draft before or after. The decision doesn’t need to be made now. It won’t be made anytime soon.”