NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman "had very little reaction" to this week’s public admission by a senior NFL exec connecting football-related head trauma and CTE, according to Pierre LeBrun of ESPN.com. Bettman: "It's fairly clear that playing hockey isn’t the same as playing football. And as we’ve said all along, we’re not going to get in a public debate on this." Bettman has "previously denied the connection between playing hockey and CTE" (ESPN.com, 3/16). In Toronto, Mike Zeisberger notes the NHL is facing a lawsuit in Minnesota where more than 100 ex-players claim the league "was negligent in informing them about the dangers of concussions and concussion-related injuries and allege the league hid information regarding possible neurological problems related to repeated knocks to the head." Despite Bettman’s "apples-to-oranges stance," the comments from the NFL "certainly will open up the NHL to a hefty amount of scrutiny" (TORONTO SUN, 3/17).
NO CHANGES ON THE HORIZON: The CP's Jonas Siegel noted there seems to be "no appetite amongst the league’s GMs to tweak the rules regarding the draft lottery." Bettman said, “There was no sentiment to make a change right now.” The NHL "shifted the lottery system two years ago, implementing changes that lowered the odds of lottery success for the league’s worst teams." The process this year "will see three lotteries performed for the top three picks." Some GMs, including the Blues' Doug Armstrong, "expressed interest in devising a rule that prevented teams not last in the standings from winning the draft lottery multiple times in a short period" (CP, 3/16). Bettman: "The beauty of a weighed lottery is there's no incentive to doing anything other than win. We have a system that we think works." Senators Exec VP, GM & President of Hockey Operations Bryan Murray said, "There's no incentive to lose now. The odds are no longer in your favour. The Toronto Maple Leafs, if they happen to be that team (that finishes last), have a 20% chance of winning (the lottery). Any guy that questions it now is wrong." Bettman added, "Our teams don't tank. If you're a team that knows it's not going to make the playoffs and you want to start focusing on the rebuild, you're going to do certain things unrelated to the draft that are going to give you assets that are going to help you develop for the future" (NATIONAL POST, 3/17).
MORE CASH FLOW: NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly "estimated the salary cap for next season could hit" $74M. YAHOO SPORTS' Josh Cooper noted this is "slightly below the estimation" at the NHL BOG meeting in December when the cap was "projected to increase" by $3M. The current salary cap is at $71.4M (SPORTS.YAHOO.com, 3/16).
