NHL teams have begun requesting that the draft be decentralized, so front offices have more time to prepare for the draft and free agency in their home markets, rather than needing to travel to the draft city. On TSN’s latest Insider Trading segment, Pierre LeBrun shared that the league sent a memo out to teams on Wednesday of this week discussing this idea, requesting that all teams vote on it by Tuesday of next week. Pierre shared that he’s heard from over a dozen teams on this topic and is expecting that the league will ultimately vote in favor of the change. If this decision goes through, the NHL Draft could mirror the NFL or NBA Draft, where players are greeted by the commissioner after being selected, while teams draft from their own offices.
Insider Trading co-panelist Chris Johnston added that the NHL is confident in their ability to find a location for the 2024 NHL Draft, with the new Vegas sphere as a top option. Even if the sphere doesn’t work out, Vegas still sounds like the league’s preferred host city, with the NHL already identifying alternate locations in the city. If nothing in Vegas pans out, Johnston mentions two unnamed cities are also in the running.
Other notes from around the league:
- Johnston also spoke about Phil Kessel’s continuing free agency on Insider Trading, sharing that the forward is generating NHL interest and could ink a deal soon. Kessel is the NHL’s current iron man, with a consecutive game streak stretching over 1000 games. But Johnston says that isn’t important for Kessel in his new deal, he just wants to play through the year. Kessel scored 14 goals and 36 points with Vegas last season, en route to his third Stanley Cup win. The 36-year-old winger is eight points away from his 1,000th NHL point.
- In addition to discussing Kessel on Insider Trading, Johnston also touched on Jesse Puljujarvi’s free agency in a recent article for The Athletic. He shared that Puljujarvi, who is recovering from surgery on both hips, is slated for a return in late November or early December and could be receiving a lot of interest from NHL clubs. Puljujarvi split time between the Edmonton Oilers and Carolina Hurricanes last season, playing in 75 games and notching a mere 16 points. He’s continuing to train in Finland while he recovers from injury.
Well … of course Kessel’s “continued” streak isn’t important, since it’s now been broken.
He hasn’t been scratched ya donkey
yea I’m puzzled as well. doesn’t make a ton of sense to celebrate someone for “consecutive” games if he doesn’t even manage to get an NHL contract.
reminds me of my friends jokingly celebrating a third-string goalie for not having conceded a goal for two years (with 0 GP in that span)
Hey! His iron man streak would technically continue if he were to sign with a new club and immediately begin playing, per TSN.
@kscheer: Steve Larmer’s games streak, which was at the time just a season short of the record, was considered broken when he held out. The NHL has already announced that as of the 14th (when the last team yet to play, Anaheim, did so), Kessel’s streak was ended, and they set the conditions, not TSN.
The league has a different take on it, whatever TSN has to theorize.
Why would any GM have Interest in Puljujarvi?
Some team will hope that the issues were due to his hip injuries. And who knows, maybe they were?
I think its very unlikely but no reason for a rebuilding team or a team with a lot of injuries to not take a shot.
what all players in the NFL, NBA and NHL want first… a welcome from the commissioner
Fully expect NHL to abandon its unique, fan friendly draft event — which they do ably & spotlights the host community &,fanbase — to go vanilla when the answer would be to move it ahead one day & move FA frenzy back a day (July 2, making it legitimate that players are FA & unsigned for 24 hours before those quick signings when he bell rings) …. Nothing like eliminating good ideas that separate you from your bigger rivals & conceding defeat. Just like when they surrender Super Bowl Sunday when they could have a showcase evening all-Canada battle, or starting the regular season early enough to have games on Canadian Thanksgiving.
The NHL draft is horrible compared to the others. They need to concede defeat when there’s no chance of coming close to the other format
MLB has their draft at a glorified softball field in Secaucus, NJ.
Agree with dano62. The NHL Draft is one of the few things this league does that is still unique and interesting.
More time to prepare for the draft? Ya that 1 extra day is going to make a huge difference.