NHL Draft 2020: Latest Rumors Surrounding Schedule

The 2020 NHL draft is currently scheduled for June 26-27 and the NHL would very much like to keep it that way. 

Aside from the obvious exposure the league would generate with most professional sports on hiatus, it would help the NHL stay as close to its normal schedule as possible. According to Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman, the league has proposed going forward with a late-June draft even with the current season on hiatus because of the COVID-19 pandemic. 

As Friedman notes, however, there is more than just viewership at stake here and teams may be more inclined to keep the draft as scheduled rather than postpone. 

For starters, most contracts for scouts and executives end on June 30—three days after the draft. The wealth of knowledge walking out the door if there's no draft before July could severely hinder the ability of general managers during the selection process, to say nothing of other teams being able to pick up new scouts and compare prospect notes. It would put plenty of teams and players at a disadvantage. 

One team, according to Friedman, has 18 contracts that expire on June 30. 

Paying those team officials, or extending contracts, past June 30 also creates an issue for a league that has otherwise halted all operations. 

While that's an advantage of keeping the draft date as is, there are some major questions that require a resolution before any picks are made. 

The most controversial: conditional picks. 

Commissioner Gary Bettman would need a plan to decide how those draft positions are sorted out when playoff seeding is undetermined. He'll need a way to award compensation picks before playing the remainder of the season to see which teams make—or miss—the playoffs.

There are two other big questions that Friedman lays out: 

"How do you deal with players who would be able to start next season elsewhere if the 2020-21 NHL start is delayed until later in the year? That could include CHL/NCAA/European players — although their situations are unclear as of now. Would those players be removed from their teams and be given the opportunity to join NHL camps? 

Because of the possibility of expanded playoffs, someone asked if one team actually could win the lottery and then the Stanley Cup."

It would seemingly be in the NHL's best interest to continue with a draft in June, but it's clear there are major issues that require attention before that determination is made.