Bill Daly says draft in September would be unfair to European teams
While the initial plan for the NHL draft combine and draft to take place in June in Montreal has been axed, the NHL is still keen on holding the draft in June. One of the reasons why, according to NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly, is holding an NHL draft in September would be unfair to European teams.
"Bill Daly told me one of the reasons the NHL wants to move the draft to June is to give teams access to European players," said Ottawa Sun reporter Bruce Garrioch. "He doesn't feel it would be fair for the NHL to be trying to pluck players from Europe when their season begins if the draft is held in September."
There are issues with holding the draft in June. The regular season hasn't been completed yet so the NHL will have to determine draft order without all of the games having been played. This will surely upset someone, especially teams close to the bottom hoping for as high a pick as possible.
“There's not going to be any perfect scenario here. You look to find a scenario that you can make work, that's fair and has integrity, and you go from there," Daly told Garrioch. "I'm not suggesting one way or another whether there are legs to the possibility, but it's being thrown around and being talked about.”
It isn't just the order of picks that poses issues for the NHL either. It's how to deal with conditional picks obtained by teams through trades and how potential trades at the draft will be dealt with if the plan is still to complete the 2019-20 season in some fashion.
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YESTERDAY
MAY 18, 2026
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| G | A | PTS | ||
| Zachary Bolduc | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Rasmus Dahlin | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Phillip Danault | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Jordan Greenway | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alex Newhook | 1 | - | 1 | |
| Alexandre Carrier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Kaiden Guhle | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Lane Hutson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Beck Malenstyn | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Ryan McLeod | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Owen Power | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Mattias Samuelsson | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Nick Suzuki | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Alexandre Texier | - | 1 | 1 | |
| Josh Anderson | - | - | - | |
| Zach Benson | - | - | - | |
| Bowen Byram | - | - | - | |
| Cole Caufield | - | - | - | |
| Kirby Dach | - | - | - | |
| Ivan Demidov | - | - | - | |
| COMPLETE STATS | ||||