In Stockholm for Global Series, NHL imagining hosting 2024 Draft in Vegas at The Sphere

STOCKHOLM — If you’ve seen the mesmerizingly immersive scenes from U2’s inaugural residence inside The Sphere in Vegas, sit back and imagine what it would be like to take in a Macklin Celebrini rush at full speed inside the world’s most technologically advanced venue. Or a slap shot from 6-foot-7 prospect Anton Silayev.

The NHL can see it, too. And they’re dreaming up what the 2024 Draft would look like as potentially the first sports event to be held inside the $2.3 billion ASMR pleasure dome just off the Strip.

The league remains in discussion with The Sphere officials about the possibility, a facility owned by Madison Square Garden and New York Rangers chairman James Dolan. However, no deal has been inked, and it is not even a lock that the Draft is held in Vegas. The NHL continues to evaluate the venue and price out expenses and the feasibility – which includes the time and ability to program The Sphere’s enormous screens.

Once a facility is chosen, then the NHL can go about determining whether or not all 32 teams will be on the Draft floor. More than 80 percent of teams voted last month to move to a ‘decentralized’ Draft format where teams will conduct their business virtually from their own war rooms and team facilities.

“The issue, the only open issue, is whether we have it as early as 2024 or whether we push it to 2025,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Thursday ahead of the Global Series. “I think our objective is to have a 2024 Draft that looks a lot like our traditional Draft and transition in 2025. But we don’t have enough premonition to say that’s what’s going to happen.”

The Sphere, just for reference, does have the requisite floor space to host all 32 teams in a unique way that would provide a proper send-off for the last major professional sport to conduct an entirely in-person Draft.

“The event in either format is still going to be a major event,” commissioner Gary Bettman said. “There’s still going to be fans invited, the players, the prospects will be there with their families. The only difference will be whether the clubs will be on the floor as opposed to being at home, where they can do their own fan events and they can have more access to all their personnel in real-time.

“We were very comfortable and still are with the format we’ve been using. It’s different than any [other league] uses. We kind of liked that this was an organic proposal that a number of clubs suggested – and we’re not going to fight it. We’ll take a poll of the clubs and if an overwhelming majority want to make a change, we’ll implement their will.”

The 2024 NHL Awards will be held in a different city than the Draft, unlike in 2023 when both were hosted in Nashville at Bridgestone Arena.

Could Sens get forfeited first-round pick back?

Ever since the NHL handed down a stiff penalty last month, stripping the Ottawa Senators of a future first-round draft pick, Sens fans have mused about the possibility of the NHL rescinding the penalty. That’s what happened in 2014, when three years after removing a future first-round from the New Jersey Devils for salary cap circumvention relating to Ilya Kovalchuk’s $100 million contract, the NHL amended the sanction after the Devils applied to the league for “reconsideration and relief” from the original penalty.

Bettman was asked about the potential of that happening in this case. He didn’t slam the door shut.

“I consider the matter closed,” Bettman said. “But I’m always open for dialogue with owners on any subject they want at any point in time. It doesn’t mean that we’re inviting [reconsideration], it doesn’t mean there will be a change – but Michael [Andlauer] is always free to talk to me and he’s always free to express himself as he did, even if I happen to not agree.”

Bettman was referring to new owner Andlauer’s riveting press conference where he pushed back against the harsh punishment, as it came down on him despite occurring 591 days prior and 18 months before taking ownership of the team. Andlauer took Bettman to task publicly, even accusing the league of not being entirely transparent with him as to the severity of two outstanding investigations, perhaps as a way to drive up the purchase price of the team.

Not surprisingly, Bettman did not seem on Thursday like someone who felt he made a misstep.

“I’m not going to get into a public debate with Michael Andlauer,” Bettman said. “I don’t think that’s constructive for him, me or the league. I’m more than comfortable with what we did and maybe on reflection, Michael will be – if not already – more comfortable with the way things were handled.”

Perhaps the play for Ottawa is to hold out giving up their draft pick until the last possible year in 2026 and then asking the league to reconsider, as the Devils did a decade ago.

Prepare for a smaller World Cup of Hockey?

While in Sweden playing four NHL games outside of North America in one city for the first time ever, Bettman said the league is open to doing something “even bigger and bolder” if there is interest somewhere to do more.

Perhaps a first step would be solving the NHL’s international calendar, once and for all. NHL Players’ Association executive director Marty Walsh is also in Stockholm and scheduled to meet with Bettman and Daly on a whole host of business topics.

Daly acknowledged that in order to announce the return of an international tournament in Feb. 2025, as is planned, the league must first also get all parties in an accord ahead of the 2026 Winter Olympics in Milan, Italy.

“That’s still a work in progress,” Daly said. “All parties are aligned in trying to make happen. Hopefully, in the next couple months we’ll have a good understanding of where we are on that.”

Notice, the NHL did not necessarily say on this trip that the next international festival in 2025 would be called a World Cup of Hockey. The league has hinted in the past that it might have to make a difficult decision to exclude Russian player participation based on the ongoing and unprovoked war in Ukraine.

The league, of course, would like to have one of its superpowers participate in the tournament in a perfect world. But it’s far from a perfect world, as we see in Israel and Ukraine, and the league may have to adjust in the near future. That might mean a smaller, more intimate tournament in 2025.

“Theoretically, [full participation] that is important. As a practical matter, that might not be realistic,” Bettman said. “We might get there over time. But we may have to evolve into a more inclusive World Cup. But that’s something that’s a work-in-progress with the Players’ Association.”

We’ve yet to hear the NHL or NHLPA take a firm stance one way or the other on Russian participation. Bettman shed light on Thursday in Stockholm as to why it’s taken so long.

“You’ve heard us talk about a World Cup for longer than you want and for longer than we wanted to be talking about it,” Bettman said. “I think at minimum, there are three factors that have limited our ability to nail something down. One was COVID. Two was the change in Executive Directors of the Players’ Association. And three, the political climate in the world of how some countries are interacting with others. Those are all factors we’ve had to deal with, not by way of excuse because ultimately we’re responsible for getting it done, but that’s just the real-world practicalities of what we’ve had to encounter over the last three years.”

Stay tuned.

Quotable

“It’s a step in the right direction. We’re still undervalued. I still have real questions as to the accuracy and validity of what’s being reported. I think we’re being materially underreported in terms of the value of our franchises.”

— Gary Bettman on Sportico’s report last week that NHL franchise values increased by an average of 31 percent year-over-year.