MANALAPAN, Fla. — Although the NHL has yet to confirm which nations will participate in the 2028 World Cup of Hockey, league commissioner Gary Bettman and deputy commissioner Bill Daly clarified that Russia won’t likely be among them should their invasion of Ukraine be ongoing as final decisions are made for the tournament.
After Bettman, Daly and NHLPA leaders Marty Walsh and Ron Hainsey announced on Monday, following the first of three general manager meetings held at the Eau Palm Beach Resort and Spa, that the World Cup will be hosted in Calgary, Edmonton and Prague, a report surfaced stating the NHL had been notified by the Swedish, Finnish and Czech federations they wouldn’t participate if Russia were included.
On Wednesday, Bettman said that no formal declarations had been submitted to the league by any of those federations.
“We know how they feel, and they have strong feelings about it, and quite frankly it’s the same strong feelings we’ve expressed and the international hockey community has expressed,” said Daly. “So, I don’t think there’s anything new there.”
Afterward, Daly added: “I don’t think we’re out of sync with where the Finns and Swedes and Czechs are with respect to Russian participation. It’ll be available if certain things happen. And if certain things don’t happen, they're likely not to participate.”
32 Thoughts: The Podcast
Hockey fans already know the name, but this is not the blog. From Sportsnet, 32 Thoughts: The Podcast with NHL Insider Elliotte Friedman and Kyle Bukauskas is a weekly deep dive into the biggest news and interviews from the hockey world.
Latest episode
When one reporter asked, “Certain things, meaning the war ending?” Daly nodded in the affirmative.
Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022 and the country's athletes have since been barred from participating in multiple international sporting events, including world championships of hockey in all age groups, the 4 Nations Face-Off (February 2025) and Milano-Cortina Winter Olympics (February 2026).
Should the Russian invasion end before all participants of the 2028 World Cup have been named, possibly enabling the Russians to participate, it's unclear how the other hockey federations might respond.
When Daly was asked if the league would have to move the European bracket of the tournament from the O2 Arena in Prague if Czechia withdrew from the tournament because of Russian participation, he responded, “No, I don’t think so. I think our relationship is actually with the O2, not necessarily with the Czech national association.”
But Daly also reminded that the entire conversation, at this moment, is strictly hypothetical.
In a response to a follow-up email from Sportsnet, which inquired about when participating nations must be named for the World Cup, Daly wrote that decisions would likely come before the 2027-28 season.
“But nothing set in stone to this point,” he added.
Stanley Cup Playoff format sticking around
If the regular season ended today, under the current playoff format some teams with the best records in the NHL wouldn’t make it past the second round just by virtue of having to play each other through the first two.
Despite recent calls from some general managers to go back to a traditional format (1 vs. 8, 2 vs. 7, 3 vs. 6, 4 vs. 5 in each conference) over the current divisional format, Bettman said no changes are coming.
“(The current format) gives us a sensational first round. Probably the best playoff first round in any sport,” the commissioner said. “We get more games and longer series as a result of the format. And you can always pick at certain situations in any given year and say, ‘Well, I’d like it to be different that year,’ but if you look at the body of work that our playoffs represent over time, what we have now works extraordinarily well.”
When asked if moving to 84 regular-season games starting in 2026-27 could further water down the relevance of the regular season with regard to playoff seeding, Bettman said, “If you look at the races for the playoffs, I think it’s virtually impossible to say that the regular season has no meaning.”
“To the contrary, every game counts,” Bettman continued. “Going to 84 games, what that really does is balance off divisional play. Every team will play every other (team) twice home and twice away, which I think is good, so we’re not doing any rotation within the division. If anything, I think it makes it more impactful.”
No calls to amend Department of Player Safety protocol
After coming under fire for his decision to suspend Anaheim Ducks defenceman Radko Gudas for only five games for kneeing Toronto Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews, who will miss the rest of the season because of an injury suffered on the hit, NHL senior vice president of the Department of Player Safety George Parros defended himself and his department on Tuesday.
Bettman defended Parros on Wednesday.
“George always takes criticism,” Bettman said. “Most of it unfair. He goes through a very detailed process of analyzing any situation that comes before him. He shared the process (on Gudas) with the managers as a group, and I believe they were satisfied with how thorough and diligent he was. And, briefly, if you look at the precedent, he was certainly within the (suspension) range. If you look at prior conduct of Gudas, he hasn’t been suspended in seven years. … And kneeing is not an epidemic; I think there have been 18 (kneeing) suspensions over the last 15 years. And so people are going to criticize one way or the other whatever Player Safety does. That’s not something that’s new.”
When asked if the league was open to changing the protocol so it's submitted by the NHLPA, Bettman said, “Actually, the process that we use is something that’s been vetted and negotiated with the players’ association, and if they’re unhappy, they always have a right to appeal it to me, which is why I still have the additional decision-making because appeals of (Parros’) decisions in first instances come to me anyway.”
Daly added: “I think it’s safe to say that, over time, we’ve had extensive discussions with the players’ association on process and made the changes on the basis of those discussions. It wasn’t even an issue in the last collective bargaining. They’re satisfied with how this operates.”
Odds and ends
• NHL revenue projections remain on target, with hockey-related revenue mounting to approximately $8 billion, according to Bettman.
“We set a record last year and revenues are up across the board,” he said. “We’ll set another record this year.”
• General managers reviewed several instances of kicked pucks and hand passes resulting in goals or revoked goals, though no formal changes to those rules were submitted.
• Starting next season, teams will be permitted to place one 19-year-old prospect in the American Hockey League rather than return them to junior. Daly explained that the CBA had some flexibility baked into it to potentially allow for this new change, and the general managers appear keen on using it to enable more than just one underage player to be admissible to the AHL, if they’re not yet ready to play in the NHL but appear too developed to return to junior.
Daly said he was going to take the general managers' recommendations to the commissioners of Canadian Hockey League on Wednesday afternoon — they would still have to be approved by the NHLPA — but he wouldn’t specify what the recommendations were.
“It wouldn’t help for us to talk about the framework publicly before we deal with the principals,” added Bettman.
• On the continued contentious nature of close calls on goaltender interference, Bettman said he’s satisfied with how reviews are being decided.
“I think our operations (department) does a sensational job with video review, and much like supplemental discipline, everyone is going to have an opinion,” Bettman said. “There are a lot of close calls that come down to a judgment call. There are certain things about our game where you cannot get 100 per cent certainty to everybody’s satisfaction. But, again, if you look at the body of work, I think our video-replay system has not only been a leader among the sports because all the other centralized systems are modelled on ours, it has held up extraordinarily well. Yet, you’re going to get calls that some people disagree with. But that’s the way it goes, that’s the beauty of sport.”
