Insider Trading: Sale of Sens, salary cap all in discussion at BOG meetings
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With the NHL's Board of Governor meetings wrapping up in Florida on Tuesday, Ryan Rishaug is joined by TSN Hockey Insiders Chris Johnston, Pierre LeBrun and Daren Dreger to discuss the latest on the sale of the Ottawa Senators, where the salary cap is headed and if there's any progress on the 2018 WJC investigation.
Commissioner Bettman made it clear there will be no significant movement on the Ottawa ownership situation until the new year, but [gave a] bit of clarity on just how many interested parties there may be.
Johnston: Yeah, probably the first bit of hard news, I'd say, on that fact that Gary Bettman mentioned more than 12 interested parties have signed non-disclosure agreements that allows them to get in and look at the books of the Ottawa Senators. Obviously very important as basically the bidders are still getting lined up. We don't have bidders in a formal manner just yet and that's expected to happen at some point early in January. One of those potential bidders, of course, is Ryan Reynolds. The commissioner mentioned that he and Bill Daly had met recently with Reynolds and they came away very impressed by him and that his involvement would be a benefit to the league and to the Senators. They like what he's done with Wrexham. While it's not a stipulation, he absolutely has to be part of the winning party. Clearly the commissioner would like to see that happen.
An update [was provided by the NHL] on the situation from Ottawa in 2018 - the investigation that the National Hockey League has done. Where do things sit as of today?
Dreger: Well, not a lot was delivered to the owners and the governors in this meeting. It was a pretty basic update, but there are some things that we need to clarify here. The main investigation from a National Hockey League perspective has been substantially completed - that was done several days ago. But now there's a follow-up process that is being engaged by the National Hockey League and the [NHLPA]. There could be additional interviews with potential players involved in the sexual assault allegations and then you have to cross over and perhaps meet up with the [London Police Service]. The London police investigation is ongoing, so the league could very well announce or move forward with some form of discipline or some form of clarity on what the conclusion of their investigation is. But they also might be persuaded by London police to sit tight and then do it all together.
The players had about $1.5 billion in debt that they had to pay back to the owners. It's happened fairly quickly and we're leading towards the salary cap discussion here. Might not happen, though, by the end of the season. Bettman drawing a bit of a hard line on which way this will go.
LeBrun: It's interesting. It was only six weeks ago at the one-day Board of Governors meeting in New York that we were at, where Gary Bettman made news by saying, 'You know what? It's possible that they'll pay off that debt and that the cap will jump by more than $4 million this summer'. But now it doesn't look like the revenues will meet that threshold and in fact, the cap will probably just go up $1 million is what Gary Bettman clarified today, while allowing that the revenues could surprise them and you could have that jump. What he didn't want to get into is this idea that we've been talking about here in the last couple of weeks - Is the NHLPA and the NHL negotiating a smoother escalation of the cap. He did not want to go there, but this is what I will tell you: The league, I think, is open to that conversation, but it is waiting for the NHLPA to come to them on it.
You took your annual stab at changing the playoff format, Pierre, but Mr. Bettman was having nothing of it. No plan anytime soon?
LeBrun: No. And let's be clear, this is not my dream or my scenario. I canvassed a dozen governors here this week. It was [12-0] in favour of wanting a play-in. Now, none of them want to go on the record because they don't want to get in trouble with the commissioner. But the reality is Gary Bettman is saying that the feedback he's getting doesn't translate into interest in the plan. That's not true. I'm telling you right now, people want a play-in and the commissioner does not want it. That's fine. That's why he's the commissioner.