TSN’s Hockey Insiders discuss the latest on the arena for the Milan Olympics, a critical three-day meeting coming up for Team Canada, the Stars seeking help after losing Tyler Seguin, the agenda for the upcoming NHL BOG meetings and Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon bringing in a limited partner.
GINO REDA: If you don’t build it, we won’t come.
That’s loosely paraphrasing Bill Daly’s comments about NHLers going to the Olympics. For more on that, here are the Insiders: Chris Johnston, Pierre LeBrun, and Darren Dreger.
Dregs, are we down to crunch time now in terms of figuring out if the arena in Milan will be ready and acceptable to play in?
DARREN DREGER: The National Hockey League and NHLPA are both very concerned about the state of these venues, but I can tell you that there’s also some optimism in all of this as well.
One of the arenas is expected to be tested next week. Both are expected to be available for a full test run event in January, so that’s good news.
There is expected to be a Zoom meeting on Friday involving the league, involving the Players’ Association to get a true progression report. But the bottom line is, as Bill Daly stated, if these venues aren’t ready, then the NHL won’t go.
But both sides expect that they will be.
REDA: Meanwhile, the Team Canada selection process continues.
The rosters aren’t officially due until Dec. 31, but could we see all but the final cuts made inside the next week, Pierre?
PIERRE LeBRUN: Certainly being dubbed a “critical” meeting that’s starting Sunday in Florida involving Doug Armstrong, his management group, including Pete DeBoer, as well.
Doug Armstrong told me that by the time they wrap up those meetings on Tuesday, they hope to have about 70 per cent of the roster going from “pencil to pen” to use his words.
Part of our conversation that we had on Wednesday was that upfront at forward, there’s still so many hard decisions, so many players making it hard on them.
My sense is this, I think there’s a group of players that weren’t at the 4 Nations that remain heavily in the conversation, but there’s only two or three spots, I think, available from that 4 Nations roster.
That includes Macklin Celebrini, Bo Horvat, Tom Wilson, Nick Suzuki, Wyatt Johnston, Mark Scheifele, and Connor Bedard, of course. To me, only three from that list make the Olympic roster and those are the conversations they will have this weekend here.
REDA: Meanwhile, brutal news out of Dallas this week. Tyler Seguin is going to miss the rest of the season because of his ACL injury.
So, where do the Stars go from here, C.J.?
CHRIS JOHNSTON: Very unfortunate, Tyler Seguin had been playing a very important role for the Stars, who are off to great start to the season.
I think where it leaves them now is they are likely to be even more aggressive buyers than they were already going to be at this year’s trade deadline.
Certainly they are in a win-now made as is, but with Seguin’s ACL injury, when they get the precise timeline, they’ll know whether they are getting essentially $4 million in extra space, or they can spend up to almost $10 million if Seguin isn’t able to return at all this year.
Pierre, earlier this week, reported they were in on Kiefer Sherwood of the Vancouver Canucks. I would expect the Stars will be combing the market for forwards as we get closer to March 6, and will be quite aggressive ahead of that trade deadline.
DREGER: We know that making trades in the National Hockey League is a tough thing to do, but then you have to look at the condensed schedule and the fact that there are two roster freezes this year.
You’ve got the holiday roster freeze, which is coming up on Dec. 19, but don’t forget the Olympic trade freeze, which is Feb. 4-22. That’s really not that far away from the March 6 trade deadline.
Even though it’s heavily scrutinized, there are some who think that we still could see double salary retention in play, but to make that work because of how complicated it is, that first trade, if you’re trying to retain salary, acquire that player is likely going to have to be made between now and Dec. 19, so a lot of things in play.
REDA: Gentlemen, we’re on our way to the Board of Governors meetings this Monday and Tuesday.
What can we look forward to on that agenda, Pierre?
LeBRUN: Well, let’s start with what we’re apparently not going to see and that’s the word “expansion”. It does not appear on the agenda that was sent to governors across the league a couple of days ago.
So, does that mean though that there can’t be groups from Atlanta or Houston that perhaps meet the executive committee of owners? I was told no, that won’t happen either from a league source.
I will say this, and Dregs and C.J. were there too in Dec. 2014, even though the word “expansion” wasn’t on the agenda, Gary Bettman stunned everyone with a ticket-drive announcement for the city of Las Vegas and Bill Foley. So, I’m not saying it’s 100 per cent no.
What is on the agenda that we’ve seen, one is an Olympic report.
I don’t have to spend a whole lot of time on this, Dregs just talked about it. You can imagine that you’ll hear a pin drop in that room as owners get the latest on the Milan arena and the concerns that the league has with everything there.
I think a real interesting conversation, an item that’s called “junior and college hockey landscape in North America”.
Boy, has the world changed underneath the NHL in terms of the feeder system. In particular, a lot of discussions how AHL teams will be able to have one 19-year-old player per organization starting next year in the new CBA.
Still not clear to a lot of people on how that will be implemented, that will be an important conversation, among others, at the BOG starting on Monday.
JOHNSTON: An important piece of team business as we go to the BOG is the Carolina Hurricanes and Tom Dundon looking to bring on a limited partner with those conversations reportedly well down the road.
What’s interesting with this, guys, he’s selling his stake in the team at a valuation of $2 billion, that’s more than double what he paid for the team eight years ago did Dundon. He will retain, I’m told though, full controlling interest if this transaction goes through.
REDA: Our Insiders, Chris Johnston, Pierre LeBrun, and Darren Dreger.
