Breaking: NHL shares schedule drafts with NHLPA for 2021!

Let’s all take a deep breath, but heck yeah, let’s get excited about this breaking news report from TSN Senior Hockey Reporter Frank Seravalli. He reports that the National Hockey League has shared draft schedules with the NHLPA on Thursday, including a 56-game season outline.

Seravalli adds that the schedules were all based on a Jan. 1 start date, but the two sides have discussed pushing that date back until later in the month.

While these talks were reportedly unrelated to the recent economic requests made by the NHL to the players, we know it remains a point of contention. 

“Difficult to say definitively ‘progress’ has been made, given the outstanding economic issues and skyrocketing COVID-19 numbers. But to me, this is one of most positive signs yet that there will be a 2021 season.

We’ll see where all this goes. Two sides remain in discussion.”

The NHL refuses to stray from its original goal of starting the season on Jan. 1, despite the fact that this projected date is just a month away and the format has yet to be determined. Players aren’t happy about too many things, especially that the NHL has reportedly asked for players to defer 20% of their salaries while escrow increases to 25%. And this despite the fact that both sides agreed to a new six-year collective bargaining agreement before the league’s return to play over the summer that accounted for the expected financial repercussions of the COVID-19 pandemic. The union agreed to 10% salary deferrals with escrow capping at 20%. That money was agreed to be paid in three equal, interest-free instalments in October 2022, 2023, 2024.

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman insisted Wednesday that the NHL is “not seeking to renegotiate” the six-year Collective Bargaining Agreement extension that was unanimously ratified by owners in July.

“We’re not actually having negotiations and we’re not seeking to renegotiate,” Bettman said. “We made a number of assumptions collectively over the summer, most of which are not applicable anymore.

“Whatever the revenues are, the players only get 50 per cent. And if we overpay them and they don’t pay us back in the short term, they have to pay us back over time. There will be stresses on the system, and we’ve had discussions about what those stresses are, and how they might be dealt with. But we’re not trying to say ‘You must do X, Y and Z.’ We’re trying to look for ways to continue to work together.”

It has since been reported that players are weighing options to sue the NHL if it chooses to cancel the 2021 season. However, at the moment, this sounds like pretty good news to see puck drop in earlier 2021.