NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said he plans to look into the influx of players being scratched from lineups for trade-related reasons and added that the topic will be discussed at next month’s general manager meetings.
“We’ve seen this to an extent we haven’t seen before,” Bettman said at a press conference in Edmonton Monday night. “It’s something we have to keep an eye on.”
With the trade deadline on March 3, a number of teams have taken precautions to protect players from injuries by sitting them out of games. While some of those players have only been scratched for a single game before being traded — including Sam Lafferty in Chicago and Dmitry Orlov and Garnet Hathaway in Washington — others such as Jakob Chychrun in Arizona and Vladislav Gavrikov in Columbus have been sitting for multiple weeks without a deal in place yet.
While Chychrun has asked out of Arizona and will welcome a trade, Sportsnet’s Elliotte Friedman reported on Monday’s episode of 32 Thoughts: The Podcast that Gavrikov isn’t happy that he’s been out of the lineup since Feb. 14.
“We wondered if (Gavrikov) would return to the lineup Saturday against Edmonton, he did not. There’s no indication he’s going to play before the deadline on Friday,” Friedman said. “If there’s going to be an issue about this between the league and the players’ association, I think Gavrikov is going to be at the centre of this because I don’t think he accepts this, I think he wants to play.”
Bettman said if the league determines the number of trade-related scratches is an issue, he would discuss it with the NHLPA. But, he added, “first we’ve got to decide whether or not it’s a problem.”
“We haven’t seen it to this extent and it’s something that we need to focus on as to whether or not it’s a unique phenomenon for whatever reason this year, and whether or not it’s a problem,” Bettman said.
