MILAN — As part of the NHL player media tour last week, deputy commissioner Bill Daly made the rounds for interviews. He sat down with The Athletic, discussing topics including the new collective bargaining agreement, the eligibility of players found not guilty in the Hockey Canada trial, the Winter Olympics and, of course, expansion.

Here are the highlights of our Q&A.

(Note: Some questions and answers are edited lightly for clarity and length.)

When you’ve worked so hard on a new, updated collective bargaining agreement and then it’s finally done, how much of a relief is it? I know you’re not just going on vacation for the rest of the next four years, and there’s always the next thing, but there’s got to be that point, like, “What do I do now?”

No, not really. Actually, it worked in reverse this time. We had a mini negotiation over the cap and escrow for the next three years in December and January. And I think we announced at the end of January what we’d done.

It was interesting, because not a lot of people focused on the fact that we made that agreement for three years when we only had one year left on the collective agreement. So, it almost was conditioned on a broader collective agreement being done. So, we almost did that on the assumption that the other shoe was going to fall correctly. But by the time we started negotiating, — and it was a real negotiation process; it wasn’t like five or six things on each side — we had a pretty fulsome list of items that we both kind of tabled.

At that time of year, for me, it was very, very challenging … juggling a full-on collective bargaining negotiation with all the other things I do at that time of the season, without wanting to steal appropriate attention for either one. So, that was an interesting balancing act I had for probably a 2 1/2 month period.

We got it done the week of the draft. And we entered that week with a handful of issues, but they were important issues, so when we reached resolution on those issues, it was a huge relief. And it was good, because I think both sides recognized they didn’t want to drag it on longer than it needed to be dragged on. There was a point in time where we said, “Pencil’s down,” and both parties kind of abided by that.

It was a process where I never came away from any of our sessions — either the in-person sessions or the ones we had by Zoom or conference calls — where I thought we went backward in negotiations. We always were moving them along and progressing, which I thought was unique in my experience in doing these.

So all good. And we’ve guaranteed ourselves at least five years from now with labor peace.

It sure feels like there’s a respect level between the league and the players’ association, you and Gary Bettman and Marty Walsh and Ron Hainsey.

We were aligned in interest in terms of getting it done. They had what they needed to get and bring back to the players and say, ‘This is what we achieved.’ And we had what we needed to bring back to the owners to say, ‘This is what we achieved.’

I think we were both pretty successful in getting the important things we needed. Neither one of us got everything we wanted. To say it’s professional is probably an understatement, because it was professional. It was productive. And that was a nice change to what we’ve had historically.

I will say the 2020 negotiation with Don (Fehr) during COVID was also relatively smooth by our standards. But it was COVID. COVID was the rationale for everything. So, it was a negotiation that was necessary for both sides’ existence.

Are you able to say if there’s any big item or something that you really wanted in this document that you weren’t able to get?

Look, our primary gets on this one were kind of tight improvements to the current system, which works pretty good already. We had a longer list than we ended up coming back with, but I was happy with what we achieved.

Long-term injured reserve was the biggest item you wanted to fix?

LTI and cap counting in the playoffs. And we have an aggregate cap on guaranteed compensation, which we’ve never had before. We have an improvement in the variability rules, which are a big deal for us. We don’t think it should be as big a deal for the players. We got concessions on term limits of contracts, so there were a bunch of contracting issues that I think we made improvements on.

I think that 82 to 84 games is going to be beneficial to both sides. It comes in connection with a shortened training camp. I think that can help us on our overall calendar length. I think we’ve started our regular seasons earlier as a general matter and our playoffs earlier, which some of the media have suggested we should.

There were a lot of good things in there. Mandatory neck protection was good, and I wasn’t sure we were going to get that, because there were big player choice advocates.

What was the rationale for lowering max term limits to six years as an unrestricted and seven years when re-signing?

We’re in a situation where we have a number of contracts that are entered into for maximum term, with the parties recognizing that the player’s not going to be really worth what the contract will pay him in the out-years of the contract. So, the more purely monetary benefits of longer-term contracts are kind of scaled back a little bit. That’s really the benefit.

The new CBA starts in September 2026. Several players, like Connor McDavid, Kirill Kaprizov and Jack Eichel, can become unrestricted free agents July 1. That would be a huge benefit for teams like the Wild if Kaprizov can only sign six years somewhere else. Can you say what the implementation rules will be? Can Kaprizov still sign seven years elsewhere?

We’re well along in the process, actually.

I don’t want to presuppose their approval, so I’m not going to answer the question specifically. But it does deal with every item that we agreed to as part of the memorandum of understanding. One bucket of items will go into effect as early as this year. One bucket of items will go into effect as of July 1 of next year — so, the league year, the full league year. And then there’s a list of items that don’t go into effect until Sept. 16 of next year.

(Note: NHLPA assistant executive director Ron Hainsey told Elliotte Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast that the term limit changes won’t start until Sept. 16, 2026, meaning free agents will be able to sign for seven-year terms next July 1.)

What is the latest on the status of the five players found not guilty in the Hockey Canada sexual assault trial?

It’s under review. Really, nothing new to report beyond the statement we issued when the verdict came down, which is their eligibility is something we’re looking at.

The NHLPA put out a statement disagreeing with the league’s decision that these players aren’t eligible. Is there a timeline if suddenly somebody like a Carter Hart had a chance to sign a contract?

I don’t think the timeline on the review will be affected by what the players do or don’t do. I would think that no club would necessarily enter into a contract with a player who is, at least by our interpretation, not eligible currently. I might be wrong. I mean, clubs have done stupider things in the past, but I don’t anticipate that happening. But if it does happen, I don’t think that changes the timeline in terms of what Gary might do on his side.

Six months from today, the gold medal in men’s hockey will be awarded not far from here. The arena is a construction site. No roads leading in. They haven’t even begun building the practice rink. I know this is common with every Olympics, but is the league worried?

I was about to say that. I mean, I don’t know how they always get it done, but they do. Sochi was the same way. It wasn’t with the arena, but it was with all the other facilities. There were still hammer and nails on the day of the opening ceremonies, right?

So, I think it’s consistent with Olympic experiences. They have a test event scheduled for December, where the ice will be utilized for tournament purposes. So, we’ll have a sense at least then. We had a site briefing two days ago. We had a team there. I was not there, because I was traveling that night. But we’re hearing more optimistic reports than we had heard for a long period of time.

What’s the latest on expansion? I know Atlanta was supposed to meet with you in July.

We’ve been meeting. I’m sure, maybe, we did have a meeting with Atlanta in July. May have. I mean, expressions of interest continue to give them audiences with us, pitch us on the merits and why we should be considering.

We haven’t said no to anybody. And there are multiple entities within multiple markets that are talking to us. None has gotten to the level of having a full proposal that we think is worthy of sharing with the Board of Governors or the executive committee. One of those could happen in the future. I semi-expect it to happen in the future, but it hasn’t happened yet.

And certainly, none of those candidates or applicants have been given any kind of timeline that they had to meet. So, it’s kind of an open-ended process at this point.

(Photo of Bill Daly and Gary Bettman: Joel Auerbach / Getty Images)