GMs ponder expansion draft, goalie equipment

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This article was published 16/03/2016 (3490 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

On the final day of the general managers’ meetings in Boca Raton, Fla., the 30 men running the NHL’s hockey departments heard an outline of potential rules and guidelines for a potential expansion draft in 2017.

Once he had heard Wednesday what may be coming, Jets GM Kevin Cheveldayoff considered it a priority to relay that information to his hockey staff because it’s about to become part of the everyday thinking in managing a roster.

“Certainly, from the moment I left the meetings, it was one of the first phone calls I made to our staff, that here are some of the parameters we’re talking about,” Cheveldayoff said via phone from Florida.

“(Assistant GM) Larry Simmons was on the other side of this in Atlanta at that expansion (in 1999), so he’s got a lot of knowledge and practical experience with something like this.”

What the NHL GMs heard on Day 3 of the meetings was the league’s governors will decide before this June’s draft whether they will add one team, two teams or no teams for 2017-18.

It’s also possible expansion could be delayed further but if something’s a go for the 2017-18 season, teams would need a full year to manage their own situations in preparation.

There was talk that clubs could protect seven forwards, three defencemen and one goalie or eight skaters and one goalie. As well, the GMs heard first- and second-year pros would be exempt from the expansion draft, and that they’d be required to make available in the draft at least 25 per cent of the salary on their payroll.

Teams would lose one player in the case of one expansion team, two if there are two expansion teams.

“We’ve got the framework of something that could happen if there is expansion,” Cheveldayoff said. “But it’s not etched in stone yet, I think.

“And there are lots of nuances here, too. There is a certain level of experience that you must expose in the draft. There’s a certain level of cap that you must expose in the draft. And there are certain things that the selecting teams must select. There have been lots of things circulating but those are the surface, topical things. But like everything, the devil is in the details.”

The GMs also heard this week the move to slim and contour goalie equipment is a go for 2016-17. Upper-body pieces and pants are the main target of this reduction and the competition committee is well along in its recommendations and push to have manufacturers produce this equipment by summer.

The GMs were told non-compliance will be met with player suspensions.

“This is something we’ve talked about going back to this time last year at the meetings,” Cheveldayoff said. “One of the things has always been the timing and production of the equipment, getting the manufacturers to have it. It’s a continuation of those talks from last year, and it’s coming to the point in time where we’re looking to seeing the prototypes and final products that the companies would be getting to us.”

Cheveldayoff was uncertain it would lead to more offence or more goals.

“I don’t know if it will or not,” he said. “I guess it’ll create a little more level playing field if the stuff we’re talking about is equipment contoured to your actual size. There are bigger goalies but the equipment (should) be proportionate to those goalies’ sizes versus others.

“The concepts of adding equipment and pieces to goalies’ equipment over time seems to have gotten out of hand so if we can rein it in, we’ll create a level playing field.”

One of the first items the GMs addressed Wednesday was a challenge/review that took place during Tuesday night’s Carolina-Washington game, decided on an Alex Ovechkin overtime goal that might have been offside.

Just prior to the winning shot, Evgeny Kuznetsov crossed the Carolina blue-line with his feet ahead of the puck and the linesmen, in review, had to decide whether he had full control of the puck as he did so.

This week’s discussion at the GM’s meetings didn’t focus on the definition of things such as control as much as the mechanics of how these calls are determined.

“When we entered into this, we knew there were going to be some challenges with the coach’s challenge,” Cheveldayoff said. “Whenever you embark on an aggressive thing like this, there will be things that pop up that you don’t see. At the end of the day, let’s go back to why we got into the coach’s challenge. It was to provide a mechanism so that egregious goals would be handled.

“I think that has certainly been taken care of. There are challenges for me in that the blue-lines are a difficult call and those lead to a lot of inconclusive-type situations. You rely on television cameras and replays and that’s how you make decisions.”

This spring, the league will add cameras at the blue-lines for playoff games to help the officials when required.

tim.campbell@freepress.mb.ca