Pay day coming
Frank Seravalli: “#NHL players will be paid next week for the first time since April. All players who have a contract for 2020-21 season – and were frozen on roster at the pause – will be paid 8.1% of their ’21 salary by Oct. 31.”
The draft lottery
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet: The NHL GMs spoke for over two hours yesterday about the draft lottery. Some want the format changed and for teams with lower seedings to have better odds of winning. The Detroit Red Wings weren’t happy to drop down to fourth and they have some support from other GMs. The NHL has asked for some different proposals.
On next season
Elliotte Friedman of Sportsnet: The NHL is still hoping for a January 1st start, but there are no guarantees that will happen. The amount of games and how far into the summer they will play is another unknown.
Reports yesterday have the NBA hoping to start by Christmas and play a 72 game schedule, and finishing the season before the Summer Olympics start.
The NHL and NHLPA will soon start to have more talks about next season.
On the AHL season
Pierre LeBrun of The Athletic: The AHL has a tentative start date of December 4th but that is likely to change.
“We’re still in the gathering information stage,” AHL president and CEO Scott Howson told The Athletic on Tuesday. “We have a tentative start date of Dec. 4 but that’s probably going to get pushed I would say. We’re consulting with the NHL and trying to figure out what the best path is.”
The AHL may delay the start of their season until after the NHL gets underway, which it normally does. Some teams do want their AHL prospects playing as soon as possible though.
There is also the issue of the Canada/U.S. border restrictions.