MILAN \u2014 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.<\/p>\n
Here are the highlights of our Q&A.<\/p>\n
(Note: Some questions and answers are edited lightly for clarity and length.)<\/p>\n
When you\u2019ve worked so hard on a new, updated collective bargaining agreement and then it\u2019s finally done, how much of a relief is it? I know you\u2019re not just going on vacation for the rest of the next four years, and there\u2019s always the next thing, but there\u2019s got to be that point, like, \u201cWhat do I do now?\u201d<\/strong><\/p>\n 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\u2019d done.<\/p>\n 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, \u2014 and it was a real negotiation process; it wasn\u2019t like five or six things on each side \u2014 we had a pretty fulsome list of items that we both kind of tabled.<\/p>\n At that time of year, for me, it was very, very challenging \u2026 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019t want to drag it on longer than it needed to be dragged on. There was a point in time where we said, \u201cPencil\u2019s down,\u201d and both parties kind of abided by that.<\/p>\n It was a process where I never came away from any of our sessions \u2014 either the in-person sessions or the ones we had by Zoom or conference calls \u2014 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.<\/p>\n So all good. And we\u2019ve guaranteed ourselves at least five years from now with labor peace.<\/p>\n It sure feels like there\u2019s a respect level between the league and the players\u2019 association, you and Gary Bettman and Marty Walsh and Ron Hainsey.<\/strong><\/p>\n 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, \u2018This is what we achieved.\u2019 And we had what we needed to bring back to the owners to say, \u2018This is what we achieved.\u2019<\/p>\n 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\u2019s professional is probably an understatement, because it was professional. It was productive. And that was a nice change to what we\u2019ve had historically.<\/p>\n 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\u2019 existence.<\/p>\n Are you able to say if there\u2019s any big item or something that you really wanted in this document that you weren\u2019t able to get?<\/strong><\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n Long-term injured reserve was the biggest item you wanted to fix?<\/strong><\/p>\n LTI and cap counting in the playoffs. And we have an aggregate cap on guaranteed compensation, which we\u2019ve never had before. We have an improvement in the variability rules, which are a big deal for us. We don\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n 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\u2019ve started our regular seasons earlier as a general matter and our playoffs earlier, which some of the media have suggested we should.<\/p>\n I will never give up. A reminder of how the NHL would look like if I were commissioner \ud83e\udd2a:\n
\u2013 Stanley Cup awarded by May 31
\u2013 shorten camp and pre-season, drop puck on regular season around Sept. 15
\u2013 no more all star games ever
\u2013 move draft earlier in June as a result of season\u2026<\/p>\n