2020 NHL Draft: June draft creates more problems than it solves

With the National Hockey League hoping to have the 2020 NHL Draft before postseason play concludes, that could create more issues than it solves.

Throughout a season, teams try to improve, whether it be signing free agents, acquiring players via trade, or by drafting young, talented potential. Usually held after the season, the NHL, due to COVID-19, would like to hold the 2020 NHL Draft sometime in June, with the league needing a month to prepare accordingly.

Most general managers, according to TSN’s Pierre LeBrun, are against having the draft early, with the league trying to convince them that this is the most beneficial route. However, this earlier than the anticipated draft date would bring about many headaches, including trades containing conditional picks that would need to be adjusted.

These conditional picks rely on the completion of the Stanley Cup Playoffs to determine their worth, a playoff that would not be completed until late August, early September barring zero setbacks due to this pandemic.

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While the draft lottery would need some altering, this is not too big of a concern. Despite general managers’ disapproval of where their team might sit, the order can be taken based on play up to now.

In the past, the 15 teams that do not qualify for postseason play, as well as teams who own other team’s draft picks through trades, are put into a weighted lottery. The order of the lottery is the inverse in standings from the regular season, with the worst team in the league given the highest chance (18.5%) at winning the number one overall pick.

With the weighted Draft Lottery in place, it is impossible to tank to get the top pick because the top pick is not guaranteed to the worst team.

As of now, the Detroit Red Wings would have the greatest odds for Alexis Lafreniere, the assumed top pick. And while the Red Wings COULD finish the season better than the last place, that is highly unlikely.

Based on how the remainder of the season plays out, some teams may find themselves with better odds come the end of the season for a top pick. The same can be said about the opposite scenario, with teams seeing their odds decrease with more success in the final 14 games or so.

And for that reason, general managers rather see how the season plays out before being compelled into a new format.

For the remaining teams that find themselves in a playoff spot, their range in picks changes based on playoff performance. If the eighth seed is eliminated in the first or second round, they are awarded the 16th or 17th pick. Their slot, as well as every other playoff team, is directly correlated to postseason play.

Now another issue is the fact that from the start of a season until the end, teams use trades to fill holes in their respective organizations.

With trades, particularly on Trade Deadline day, some teams may sacrifice a lot of their future in order to acquire a player, rental, or with years remaining, to make a long run at winning the cup.

That being said, the playoffs determine if those deals were beneficial, leading to decisions to re-sign certain players or to let them walk during free agency. And with players that are not returning to their clubs, that creates more holes that need to be addressed.

And that may lead to what kind of player is taken in the draft.

We saw one of the best teams all-time in the Tampa Bay Lightning make the playoffs, a team expected to find themselves in the Stanley Cup Finals. This was a team that had very few holes to fill if any. Or so it seemed.

But hockey is an unpredictable sport, and this all-time great regular season team was swept in the first round of the playoffs by the Columbus Blue Jackets shocking the NHL. Now without playing the playoffs, the Lightning may have gone a different route in the draft. But seeing the team had some issues, the team drafted left-winger Nolan Foote 27th overall in the 2019 NHL Draft, ultimately a player sent to the New Jersey Devils for forward Blake Coleman.

If the draft happened before the playoffs, the Lightning, an already dominant force with again seemingly limited areas that needed fixing, may have decided to go a different route in the draft, potentially trading their pick or drafting another player instead.

And the same thing can be said for many teams.

While we can play the “what if” game, most general managers would agree that the outcome of the playoffs is a valuable tool in determining what kind of player they will go after.

But how about the trades that are made during the draft each year?

Friedman makes a note in his article about this specific issue:

"Obviously, another concern is a June draft would prevent teams from trading players they’ll need if the season resumes. Daly indicated the league’s research of the last five draft days showed that there were 106 trades conducted and 64 would have been similarly permissible had the draft been staged prior to the end of the season."

This leaves teams with a major dilemma. Every general manager’s goal is to bring home a Stanley Cup. But some players on the roster may become valuable assets in deals during the draft in order to bolster their club for the future.

To the extreme, I am going to use last year’s Blue Jackets as an example. Following the outcome of the playoffs, Artemi Panarin, Matt Duchene, and Sergei Bobrovsky all decided to leave the team and pursue their career elsewhere. All these players were unrestricted free agents and had hinted that re-signing with the team was not the direction they wanted to go.

If the draft were to have been held before the postseason began, there was a big chance that one or more of these players could be dealt in order to get some type of return, rather than losing them for nothing once free agency began.

Each one of these players could help a playoff team, making a trade for them a potential short-term rental. But again winning a cup is a top priority and if a team only gets the likes of a Panarin to help them win a cup and then sees them leave, it would have been worth it

If anything, other players on the team with non-friendly deals could have been dealt to free up some cap room in order to potentially re-sign one of thee players, regardless of how unlikely that may be.

For those reasons mentioned, waiting to have the draft is the best option. I understand the league wanting to give the fans hockey content, but this could prove as a major mistake for this season, as well as seasons to follow.

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Teams will need to adapt to the changes put forth as best they can. But for now, despite the unlimited amounts of issues, it seems the league is not asking about opinions and that this draft will happen before postseason play can be completed. And that is unfortunate.

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