Apr 24, 2020
Ferraro: Too many complications if NHL holds draft before season resumption
TSN Hockey Analyst Ray Ferraro says there would be too many complications should the NHL try to hold the NHL Draft before resuming the season.
TSN.ca Staff
TSN Hockey Analyst Ray Ferraro says there would be too many complications should the NHL try to hold the NHL Draft before resuming the season.
Speaking on the latest episode of The Ray & Dregs Podcast, TSN Hockey Insider Darren Dreger posed the question to Ferraro about if the NHL’s idea of holding the Draft before the season were to resume is feasible.
"There is the way the draft order would be. There’s the conditional draft picks. For example, Vancouver has a trade with Tampa Bay, a conditional first in the J.T. Miller trade. How would you sort that out?" Ferraro asked. "Montreal has 14 draft picks. They didn’t get 14 picks to get 14 players. They want to package those picks to a get an NHL-ready or a near NHL-ready player. You wouldn’t be able to do all of that."
On Thursday’s edition of Insider Trading, the Insiders revealed the league’s idea of holding the draft in June, before a potential resumption of the regular season in the summer.
According to TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun, a majority of the GMs that were polled opposed the idea.
"I understand they want the publicity. They would like to have the National Hockey League name and game out in public when they’re really [is] nothing else going on," Ferraro said. "I think you could still run it on the calendar as per normal.
"Stanley Cup finishes (whenever that may be). The next weekend you run the draft, the week following you start free agency. I prefer to see it stay that way."
The NHL season went on pause on March 12 due to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic.