NHL Calendar Needs Fixing

from Larry Brooks of the New York Post, It is going to be the same kind of late June crunch schedule next year, too, with the Four Nations tournament coming up in February, the regular season ending April 17, at least two weeks too late. It will be the same in 2025-26 when the NHL returns to the Olympic Games in Milan. There will be no time to breathe between the Cup Final and the draft, then no time to breathe between the draft and free agency. The compressed schedule has as much to do with cost as the elimination of the centralized draft. Well, almost as much. Well, it’s a factor, at least. There will be an opportunity for the league and the NHLPA to address the critical date schedule during the next round of collective bargaining that’s not all that far removed, with the current CBA due to expire Sept. 15, 2026. Two more years. If the draft — in whatever form it is held — annually presses up against the end of June, there is no reason for free agency to open on July 1. Deals are done, miraculously and supernaturally, within seconds of the opening bell. Riches would not be lost if free agency were pushed back to July 5. Not a single player would be inconvenienced by the switch. It would give folks time to breathe. The first-overall pick morphed into the first free-agency signing in a matter of hours. The draft was overshadowed by the specter of the open market. An additional four days would allow for more attention to be devoted to prospects in addition to providing more of a ramp-up to free agency. continued plus additional topics including this... The Senators traded a first-rounder and two seconds to the Coyotes for Jakob Chychrun on March 1, 2023, and 16 months later — July 1, 2024 — they traded Chychrun to the Caps for a third-rounder and Nick Jensen, and with cleverness like this, I cannot imagine how Ottawa has missed the playoffs seven straight seasons, can you?