An NHL Draft In June Represents Both Cost and Opportunity.
The North American sports world recently came to an oasis in the desert of original content that has been created by the COVID-19 pandemic. That oasis, so to speak, was the televised NFL Draft. With Commissioner Roger Goodell and the various football teams’ head coaches and GMs calling in their picks over Zoom, the draft was a surprisingly successful sports event at a time when those are increasingly hard to come by.
Watching the NFL Draft unfold must have given NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman even more determination to pursue what appears to be rapidly unfolding as his and the league’s plan to hold the NHL Draft in late June, which is when the league would normally hold it. Of course, normally the draft would be preceded by the conclusion of the Stanley Cup Final, and that is no longer going to be happening in June, and it may not even happen at all (although the league remains determined to run the playoffs at a later date if at all possible).
Writing in The Athletic, veteran NHL journalist Pierre LeBrun reported that the decision confirming the draft being in June. LeBrun did note, however, that the majority of General Managers of the 31 NHL teams have “pushed back” on the league’s proposal. The reason for their reluctance is due to the fact that, at the NHL’s trade deadline, many teams exchanged first, second, and later round draft picks in pursuit of players to help contenders win now.
In many cases, some of those traded picks had conditions attached to them dependent on the contending team trading them making certain rounds in the Stanley Cup playoffs, such as the conference finals, or even winning them all. How are these trades going to be settled in an equitable fashion, when they were made when hockey front offices had no idea that the sports world (and indeed the planet as a whole) would be consumed by a global pandemic?
Another complicating factor is how to reform the NHL’s draft lottery system in the event of the draft taking place before the playoffs, or perhaps even the playoff format, is determined. Under the current lottery format, teams have a chance (if a slight one), of winning a top two spot in the lottery despite being a borderline playoff team. This would subvert the entire (nominal) point of the draft, which in theory works to maintain parity in the league by allowing bottom feeding franchises to stock up on top tier talent.
The league’s proposed solution to this is to reform the lottery from its usual format to ensure that no team can move up more than four spots, while also restricting the number of spots that the worst teams can move down. This would ensure that the Detroit Red Wings, who were on pace for one of the worst seasons in the modern era of the NHL, could finish with no worse than the second overall pick, thus guaranteeing to select one of the consensus top two talents in the draft.
Those two top prospects, left winger Alexis Lafrenière and center Quinton Byfield, could both make a major contribution to turning Detroit, an iconic NHL franchise that has fallen on hard times, around. The Ottawa Senators would also be a major beneficiary of this lottery system, as they would be guaranteed two picks in the top five, one pick being their own, the other being that of the San Jose Sharks, received when they traded away their one-time franchise star Erik Karlsson in 2018.
Teams further down in the lottery pool might have cause to complain that they lose out on the chance that they already would have had at changing their own franchise’s fortunes by moving up significantly, which they would have had under the old system. They could also claim, credibly, that this would be adding insult to the injury of the fact that, if the regular season is not played out, they would lose a chance of making the playoffs that they otherwise might have been able to earn in the last dozen or so games.
All of these things represent potential downsides and tradeoffs that would have to be made if the draft were to be held in June. However, the upside for the league’s profile and image would be potentially major, with franchises and players eventually benefitting as well. With the sports landscape so devoid of any new activity, the NHL could provide a similar content oasis, to a much lesser extent than the NFL Draft for sure, but an oasis nonetheless.
No one is going to pretend that having the NHL Draft on in a pandemic will turn Alexis Lafrenière and Quinton Byfield into the equivalent of Joe Burrow and Tua Tagovailoa, at least not outside of Canada. But this is typically the time of year when the NHL does get a sizable spotlight- last year, Stanley Cup playoff ratings were at record highs. Having the draft in June when little to no other sports activity is going on could restore something of that spotlight the NHL would have otherwise enjoyed, and with little to no competition for eyeballs and attention to go with it.
If that spectacle draws in TV ratings and revenue for the league, it could not come at a more opportune time. The NHL, more than anything else, is a gate-driven league, and is suffering more than any of the other big four sports leagues from the lack of live games, and will feel more financial pain for playing games without fans. Not only would ratings for the draft boost revenue, but if it increases interest, and subsequently ratings, for the Stanley Cup playoffs when (and if) they do eventually happen. The plan to hold the NHL Draft in June will present no share of complications if it is implemented, however, faced with perhaps more financial uncertainty due to COVID-19 than any other league, the NHL may ultimately have no choice but to take the risk.
