NHL exploring moving Draft up to June – before season is completed

[SaveByRichter35 904]

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One of the items discussed on the NHL’s biweekly General Managers conference call on Tuesday was the idea of conducting the 2020 Draft virtually in June, before the 2019-20 season is completed, as first reported by TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun.

It's just one of the options being considered, but holding the Draft in June would be unprecedented in both timing and presentation.

No Draft has ever been conducted before the Stanley Cup has been awarded, just as no Draft has ever been held over video teleconference – as the NFL will do on Thursday night.

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Because there are a myriad of complications and questions that would first need to be answered for the league’s 31 teams and the NHL Players’ Association:

With the season pending, how would the Draft Lottery standings be formulated?
What would happen to draft picks with conditions attached?
Could teams make trades involving current roster players?

Plenty more in the linked article
https://www.tsn.ca/talent/nhl-exploring-moving-draft-up-to-june-before-season-is-completed-1.1468686

[CJ Boiss 125]

How the hell do you have a draft before playoffs?

No. Just no, Bettman. You want the draft? Cancel the season.

[Teezle 57]

Just cancel the season already. 

I wonder how hard it will be for them to agree on a draft order if this happens. I would assume the default order is overall league standings at the time the season was cancelled, but if I were a GM of a top-placing team I'd try to argue "Yeah, but you saw what happened to the Lightning last year? We would have definitely lost in round 1 of the playoffs, so we should draft 18th instead of 29th." I'm just amused by the thought of a GM trying to make the case that, actually, his team is not as good (which implies that he is not as good at GM as he wants people to think).

[Puckstopper 217]

Seems like a typically idiotic Bettman move.   I'm sure the owners and GM's will talk him out of it.

[MTH 667]

Baseball draft is also in June. But that's based on the the previous completed season's final standings (after the World Series).