Insider Trading: Could concessions be made with NHL's current LTIR stance?

Johnston: The takeaway for me here is that your video coach's value just went up. A number of teams we've seen this year have given that coach the 'Player of the Game' belt after a successful challenge whether it's an offside play or goaltender interference but with the mistakes involved here that you're down to a five-on-three if you're wrong, the video coach better be right. 

LeBrun: They discussed three-on-three overtime the past couple of days in a smaller group and a larger group and they decided to leave it alone. Remember, at the November GM meetings, a couple of managers complained about the OT sessions getting boring because the offensive team with the puck, regrouping, getting out of the zone - hockey ops took a close look at it the past couple of months and said 'you know what, it's not worth bringing in some of the changes that we're thinking about'. Seventy per cent of games end in three-on-three OT, it's good enough for them.

Reda: Had an interesting conversation with George Parros, the senior VP of player safety, and at one point of the conversation he said 'man, I feel like I'm taking more hits now than as a player,' which I guess is not surprising, considering his position. 

Johnston: Well that's part of the job, and there's no question on Monday, when he was part of a breakout group, that he faced some pointed - we'll say 'constructive criticism' - but I think what should be said here is the head of the department of player safety, he really went through and introduced the key members of his team, went through the process of how they arrived there, and I think coming out of this, which some GMs want anyways, maybe just a little bit more back-and-forth where one of their players is involved in one of these situations where supplemental discipline is on the table. While maybe the heat was up a little entering the meeting; coming out of it, the temperature will not be that hot. 

Dreger: I would agree with that, and I think Parros, and the department of player safety and ultimately hockey operations wants to expand the relationships they have with the general managers and it was stressed: 'look, if your team is playing in Toronto, come in a day early if you're the general manager, spend time in the situation room, or if you're in New York, go in to the department of player safety with Parros, watch these guys and how they do their job, it's all about relationship building. 

Reda: It's interesting - LTIR was not officially on the agenda, however, it did become a bit of a hot-button issue behind closed doors.

LeBrun: What we understand now, and it makes a little bit more sense now, is that the GM's executive committee, which met with Gary Bettman, Bill Daly and Colin Campbell Sunday night before the GM meetings and had a discussion about LTIR and what they decided is Bettman and Daly advised the GMs on this committee to go back and speak to all the GMs around the league over the next few months and try to get all the feedback you need before you come back to us as a league and whether or not we need to bring this to the next level to the Players Association. I think it's a constructive way to do it and if you think of the guys who are on the committee: Doug Armstrong, Ken Holland, Kevin Cheveldayoff, Lou Lamoriello, Don Waddell and Steve Yzerman - each of
those members of the committee are responsible for a group of four or five GMs each and each of those guys and those are the guys going to talk about this issue and we'll see if they find consensus and they may not, they may just say it's not worth the conversation that it's going to require with the players, but then again they may say it's time to tweak the way this works in terms of no salary cap in the playoffs.   

Reda: Some news from the Flyers camp, CJ?

Johnston: A bit surprising - one month after being named captain, Sean Couturier is a healthy scratch for Tuesday's game against the Toronto Maple Leafs. I had a chance to catch up with Danny Briere, their GM, and he said first of all: it's John Tortorella's call, the head coach, this is the way he does it, he treats everyone fairly, but he also added he intends in the coming days after the dust settles a little bit to sit down with Couturier to make sure everyone's on the same page there.

Reda: Two days in the books but we're not done yet, still day three to come and we'll hear from commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly.