Ryan O’Reilly Toronto Maple LeafsChris Johnston: It’s encouraging news from the Leafs’ end of things as Kyle Dubas said, definitively, that Ryan O’Reilly will be back before the playoffs. That wasn’t necessarily in total question but they’ve been more vague with his timeline previous to this, especially after he suffered that broken left index finger earlier this month.
An interesting thing that Kyle Dubas noted was that the nature of the break was an encouraging one. It was a clean break and one that should heal pretty well. They are expecting O’Reilly to resume skating this week with an anticipated return of a little sooner than when the playoffs start five weeks from now.
Are there updates on other injured players around the league?
Mark Stone Vegas Golden KnightsDarren Dreger: There are injury issues for a number of clubs around the National Hockey League. It’s a delicate time of year as you approach the later stages of the second half of the regular season.
The Colorado Avalanche have announced that Artturi Lehkonen is going to be out for several weeks. There has not been much of an update coming from the Vegas Golden Knights about Mark Stone because he’s been out for a period of time now but he needs that much more before they have a better idea of where he’s at and whether or not he can be a playoff participant.
You think of Ryan O’Reilly and you think of Mark Stone and they are the heartbeats of their organizations in many respects.
What discussions have taken place about potential rule changes, like the expansion of the coach’s challenge?
D.J. SmithJohnston: I’d say this is the early stage of discussion. I don’t expect that when the meetings wrap on Wednesday, we’ll be having a formal change to the rule. At this point, I think they’re wrestling with the idea of “What do you do with technology?”
We can all sit here and say we want to get as many calls absolutely correct as possible but there’s a line there, especially when you’re looking at high-sticking plays and whether it’s “friendly fire” or not. Do you potentially want to be reviewing an extra 700 penalties? Which is how many high-sticking calls there currently are. Does that review have to come in the form of a coach’s challenge, where the coach is making that call? Or does the league do it? They’re even talking about putting a watch on the referee so they can buzz him. The point being is I don’t think they’ve landed on any one area that this is going to go to I think we’ll be talking about this in future meetings when we get together.
Dreger: I agree. But there’s a public relations twist to this as well, right? Because we’re so good at what we do. Technology is enhanced over time and the NHL is tired of getting hit over the head with missed calls so that’s why when you look at the puck over glass or a phantom high stick, or friendly fire in the high stick category, that’s why they’re having this discussion here.
You have to fast forward and look at the bigger picture. Can you envision a coach in a playoff environment, say overtime, calling a coach’s challenge and potentially going into a 5-on-3 situation if they get that challenge wrong? The general managers would prefer the NHL keep that in-house and that decision, whether to apply video review or not, is handled by the situation room. But then you’ve got the NHL saying “All right, we’ve got it wrong once, we don’t want to get it wrong twice.” So there are a lot of layers to this.
Are referees going to be held accountable?
Wes McCauleyJohnston: They are and director of officiating Stephen Walkom addressed the GMs on Tuesday. One of the things he did in his presentation is show a video of a day in the life of veteran official Wes McCauley. That detailed through a game the kind of discussion that are had between periods among the officials, how the officiating director on site communicates with the referee and points out, maybe, “Hey you missed a call here or you could have done this there.” [It even showed] how McCauley himself breaks the game down the next day and looks at his own performance.
This is a stressful time of year between the referees and the GMs on how those calls go down but a little accountability lesson was a part of the presentation on this day.
Gino Reda: Looking ahead to Day 3 of the general managers’ meetings, there’s going to be some news. We expect to find out the date of the Draft Lottery. With Connor Bedard waiting in the wings, expect some pomp and circumstance.
