If it has been answered, my apologies, but what's the deal with the NHL draft and free agency now? Are they pushed back? I assume July 1 will be since the teams will be playing, but is the draft still going to be held at the usual time?
The draft is definitely pushed back. They'll have the preliminary lottery on June 26, with 23 teams potentially eligible for the first pick: the Dirty Seven and the 16 teams who will play in the 5-game qualifying/preliminary/non-playoff round. Basically, everyone BUT the top 4 teams in each of the 2 conferences.
If the Dirty Seven get all three top spots, done. There are 8 placeholders for the 16 preliminary teams in the lottery - Teams A-H. The lottery will take place, with the weighted odds for the 15 teams (7 real teams and 8 placeholders) the same as last year. If no placeholders are drawn, lottery is over.
If any of the placeholder teams are drawn, a secondary lottery will happen AFTER the qualifying round, but before the first round of the real, official playoffs (ie the first round the Bruins play in ). The Eliminated Eight will each get an equal 1/8 shot to take one of those picks. If there are 2 or 3 spots, an individual team can get ONE of those picks, so their chances could be as high as 3/8 to get any of the top three picks.
As far as timing of the draft: Phase 3 (formal training camps) will not take place until the start of July. Phase 4 (PLAYOFFS!) will likely not take place until August, and that's optimistic. Let's say they start August 1 with the prelim round/round robin. You need to split the teams into even/odd days because you can't have 4 or 5 games in a hub on a single day. So, the first games for each team will be August 1-2. Assuming brutal every-other-day scheduling, that puts August 9-10 as the last set of Game 5s, and August 11 as a break day. Round 1 will start August 12-13, and if it's only 5 games, will end August 20-21. A courtesy break on August 22, and now we're in Round 2. If it's 5 games, it ends on August 31-September 1. Break on September 2, and we have Conference Finals on Sept 3. Conference Finals start play a full 7 games, and end on September 16. SCF on Sept 18, and ends on Sept 30.
So, interestingly, it takes almost exactly 2 months to run the SCF an at accelerated, every-other-day-forever pace. The schedule can be adjusted easily; they don't really have to worry about fans getting to the game, or TV stations adjusting their schedule. NBCSN will be happy to shelve any reruns they plan to run if the NHL wants to move games to an earlier date because, say, everyone in a conference finished their series by Game 5. This would allow for extra days of rest, too. Even flagship NBC will be happy to hold their SNL repeat for a new hockey game - Lorne Michaels has no reason to blow his stack over a taped repeat of SNL, and there won't be a live SNL to compete with.
With a September 30 SCF date, the Draft will likely take place in mid-October. That's my guess. Again, this assumes that there -IS- a playoff. Remember - we're not clear from COVID yet. It's good to plan, and nice to have something to look forward to, but if all the host cities have a secondary bump in COVID cases, this gets shelved.
