What we learned in annual ‘state of NHL’ availability: All-Star changes, Bettman’s future, more

RALEIGH, N.C. — The NHL is going international with a significant change to the format of its All-Star weekend next season.

Buoyed by the success of the 4 Nations Face-Off in February 2025 and the Milan Olympics earlier this year, the NHL and NHL Players’ Association will select teams of 11 players representing four countries for a rebooted three-on-three All-Star tournament: Canada, USA, Finland and Sweden. A fifth team covering the rest of the world will round out the field for the Feb. 5-6 event at UBS Arena in Elmont, N.Y.

“Our fans like All-Star,” NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final. “Our All-Star has worked well. We haven’t had some of the issues that some of the other leagues have had. Yes, we even blew ourselves up with 4 Nations by taking it to a whole new level, but there was never anything wrong with the All-Star format that we had been using for the last few years and we think what we’ve laid out for you today is going to be fun and entertaining, and that’s really what it’s all about.”

The winning team will claim a $2 million prize.

The NHL’s 2027 All-Star weekend will also feature a reimagined skills competition comprised exclusively of players aged 25 and under. Ten young stars will participate in four of the first six events: fastest skater, hardest shot, passing challenge, one-timers, stickhandling and accuracy shooting. Players will earn points based on their placement in each event.

The top four players will then advance to a shootout, facing one of four All-Star goaltenders, before the final two compete in the obstacle course finale. The winner will take home a prize of $1 million.

“I think being creative every year with little twists here and there makes it great for the fans and the players,” said NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh. — Chris Johnston

The Russia question

In the aftermath of a statement from the International Ice Hockey Federation last week seemingly opening the door a crack for the return of Russia in international tournaments, the NHL and NHL Players’ Association are keeping a close eye on it.

They have no choice as the next best-on-best event in the sport is the NHL/NHLPA 2028 World Cup of Hockey in Prague and Calgary/Edmonton, and there will need to be a decision on Russia’s inclusion (or not) at least one year before then.

“We’ll obviously be following how they (the IIHF) approach that process and what they do, and it’ll be relevant to what we do,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said at Tuesday’s state of the union news conference.

To which commissioner Bettman added: “I don’t think there’s complete clarity on what they’ve (the IIHF) done and what it means, so that’s why we’re going to have to wait and see further.’’

But even if the IIHF ends up opening the door to a return to play for Russia, the question we asked Daly was how the NHL was going to handle a potential boycott by countries such as Finland, Sweden or Czechia objecting to a return for Russia. Those hockey federations have long maintained their stance that they’re against Russia coming back while the war in Ukraine is still happening.

Daly said he actually spoke with the IIHF on Tuesday morning about this very issue.

“They don’t anticipate a problem with the Swedes and Finns, necessarily, or the Czechs right now, in terms of a boycott if it comes to that,” Daly said. “But we’re getting a little too far ahead of ourselves because they haven’t made any determinations with respect to whether any of the international tournaments scheduled for ’26-27 the Russians are going to participate in. We’re going to monitor what goes on there. We’re not going to be bound by it, but we’re going to monitor it and it’ll be relevant to our process in determining the World Cup of Hockey. But obviously the decision that came down I think is probably helpful longer-term if what you’re looking for is potential Russian participation.”

As delicate an issue as it is for the NHL, it might be even trickier for the NHLPA to navigate, as it has Russian star players telling them they want back in for best-on-best hockey, but also players from other countries still not comfortable with the idea. How do you stick-handle around that if you’re the NHLPA?

“I don’t think you stick-handle,’’ said Walsh. “The IIHF will have to make some decisions and we’re obviously closely going to be following those decisions. What the outcome of that is, let’s assume they make a decision that Russia is back in, then they (the IIHF) will have to deal with any fallout. But we’ve been very clear at the Players’ Association, our Russian players want to play in best-on-best. In a perfect world, we’d love to see them back in competition. There are a lot of other things going on here, politics around the world — we’re kind of taking it a day at a time to see where we go here.’’

To which his lieutenant, Ron Hainsey, added that it’s a conversation they had with NHL players during the Fall Tour last year and there was some opposition to Russia’s return from some.

“It’s been a few months since we circulated with the players face to face at the Fall Tour. Coming out of that, I can just say as much as we’d want in a perfect world, we’d want any top country to be in an event, there were certainly players from other countries that were not comfortable at that time,’’ Hainsey said. “… When we have players say that, as you can imagine, we’re going to listen, we will have more time before 2028 … We’ll continue to talk to the guys.’’

The tone on this issue has changed markedly over the past few months. All the stakeholders are opening the door a crack to a Russia return to international hockey, that much is clear. — Pierre LeBrun

Bettman’s future

Bettman was addressing the media on his 74th birthday and acknowledged that a succession plan is in the works with the Board of Governors. However, as is customary, he also pushed back on the idea that he’d be leaving the commissioner’s office any time soon.

“Any major organization, it’s incumbent upon its CEO, which a commissioner is, and its board, to have a succession plan,” said Bettman. “I am 74 and I do acknowledge the fact that I can’t do this forever. We have been in discussions over the last couple of years, at least, as to what a succession plan might look like. It hasn’t been fully implemented. The executive committee is fully on board. The board has been briefed in terms of the direction that we may go.

“Beyond that, there’s nothing happening imminently and reports of my demise or retirement are greatly exaggerated.”

Bettman became NHL commissioner on Feb. 1, 1993, and has already surpassed Clarence Campbell for the longest tenure among any leader in league history. The NHL has grown from 24 to 32 teams on his watch and pursued a strategy of expansion into the southern United States. It’s also become a $7.5 billion to $8 billion business, which is the range where Bettman projects revenues to land for the 2025-26 season.

“It’s going to be even better next year because the new media deal in Canada kicks in,” said Bettman. “We’ve got some new sponsors that we’ve signed and some that we’re about to. Gate receipts remain strong. I think we’re playing to something like 96 percent of capacity in the regular season, and in these playoffs, over 100 percent.

“From a business standpoint, it’s all good.”

The NHL and NHLPA also agreed to extend the collective bargaining agreement by four years last June. It runs through the 2029-30 season. — Johnston

Playoff format

We asked the commissioner on Tuesday why he is so defiant in defense of the current playoff format when so many other people, whether it’s owners, GMs or players, have repeatedly told The Athletic they would be in favor of going back to the 1-8 conference playoff format.

Star players at the Vegas Media Tour last September told The Athletic that while they weren’t really in favor of expanding the playoff format with a play-in, they definitely wanted to go back to 1-8.

But not Bettman.

“If you look at the body of work since 2013 when this format went into place, you get statistically closer games, more games and more competitive games and more entertaining games throughout under this format than you do 1 through 8,” the commissioner said. “And while there are plenty of people who might want to make a change — particularly in a given year if you think there’s an aberration — but at the end of the day, if you’re interested in longer competitive series, and actually under this format, you get more six- and seven-game series than you do under 1 through 8, there are plenty of people who think the format works just fine. It’s continued to be the subject of discussions, but it’s not clear-cut that a change is called for, putting it in its most benign light from that standpoint.”

The NHLPA has a say in the matter, but Hainsey said Tuesday that while some players will bring it up from time to time, it’s not a burning issue for them at large.

“It’s not something that the players brought forward as ‘you guys need to go talk about this,’” Hainsey said as far as it not being a collective bargaining topic last year. “I think certainly when you ask, depending on the player or the matchup that year, this isn’t breaking news that everybody in Minnesota and Dallas was kind of like, ‘Hey, we’ve got two teams really at the top of the league, this is a little unfair.’ You would expect that reaction from them.”

But not enough of an overwhelming sentiment so far across the entire player membership, Hainsey said, to make it a bigger deal.

“It’s not something we spend a ton of time on, it’s not something the players say, ‘Hey, this is something you need to do something about,’” Hainsey said. — LeBrun

Draft changes

The NHL’s decentralized draft format appears to be here to stay.

The June 26-27 event at Buffalo’s KeyBank Center will be conducted with no general managers or front office staff in the building, just like last year’s draft in Los Angeles. The change to a toned-down gathering with prospects and a representative from each team seems to be popular.

“Unless we hear from a lot of clubs that they want to make a change, which is how the change came about in the first place, I don’t see the need to poll every year,” said Bettman. “If a bunch of clubs call Bill or me and say, ‘You know what, we’d like to go back,’ then we’d do that. But I don’t anticipate that. I think the clubs like the format.”

Fans can expect one slight alteration, though.

The NHL doesn’t want a repeat of last year’s extended first round, which took nearly four and a half hours to complete.

“We promise we’re going to make the first round a little more efficient than we did last time,” said Bettman. “We’ll make sure we’re mindful of speeding it up.” — Johnston