TSN: The 2021 NHL draft and the draft lottery are up in the air. There is a draft date, but it could be changed. Pierre LeBrun said that some GM who’ve been wanting the draft lottery system changed. The NHL said to them to come up with some potential options.
“Well here is where it has gone, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly confirming to me that the league is working on changing the format for the Draft Lottery and something is going to be presented to the Board of Governors here sooner rather than later.
Now, that’s as far as he wanted to go, because they’re still working on it, so we don’t know exactly what those changes will be, but we assume from talking to other people around the league, that it’s probably going to augment the chances of the bottom teams of getting that first overall pick. There are a lot of people around the league that simply felt that a team like Detroit, undergoing a real rebuild, 23 points behind the 30th-place team last year, should not have been picking fourth. So, look for that type of change and perhaps other parameters in the lottery to also change and I think it’s a long time coming for some teams who felt the pendulum had gone too far the other way.”
Darren Dreger said that currently, the 2021 NHL draft isn’t a priority as there are more pressing things that need to dealt with. The NHL does want to know with the GMS are thinking, if they’d want to move it back or not. The NHL has discussed internally about three scenarios.
“One of them is just maintaining status quo, host the draft in July no matter what the playing status is of this year’s draft-eligible players.
Another one, push the draft to December, January, buy some time to scout players, but this is not a preferred option by the clubs.
The preferred option as we suggested last week, is move the 2021 Draft scheduled for July into the summer of 2022 and host back-to-back drafts. Now, high priority issues for all general managers and their scouting departments, but not necessarily top priority for the commissioner’s office.”
