According to Colin Campbell, Vegas Golden Knights general manager George McPhee was the most popular man at this week’s GM meetings.
Not surprising, seeing as the NHL’s 31st team is officially open for business and in the midst of preparations for the upcoming expansion draft.
Naturally, one of the most popular talking points coming out of the meetings was the rules around the June 21 event—more specifically, the lists of players each team will make available for the expansion draft and whether or not they’ll be made public.
On Wednesday, Sportsnet’s Chris Johnston wrote that NHL GMs are “hoping to keep a lid on the conjecture around that process.”
“They’d prefer not to have their list of protected and unprotected players made public after submitting it to the NHL by 5 p.m. ET on June 17,” Johnston wrote. “At this point it appears as though the only formal announcement around the expansion draft will be the 30 players ultimately selected by Vegas, according to Daly.”
Campbell, the NHL’s senior executive vice-president of hockey operations, was asked about it during Thursday’s edition of Prime Time Sports and said the NHL will discuss making the lists available to the public.
“The official answer [at the GM meetings] was, ‘it looks like we’re going to keep them private,'” Campbell told Sportsnet’s Bob McCown and John Shannon. “The unofficial answer was, ‘nothing’s private, and it’s going to get out.’”
So, why not make them public to begin with?
“They may be. They’re going to discuss it. They may be, because of that—it’s going to get out, you know it’ll get out there,” Campbell explained.
When asked if the league would take it a step further and consider making it into a television event, Campbell said, “It’s possible, yes.”
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