from Bruce Garrioch of the Ottawa Sun,

The NHL is playing the waiting game on a final decision on whether to hold the draft in June.

Though the expectation is it will happen, the topic dominated a conference call between commissioner Gary Bettman, deputy commissioner Bill Daly and the board of governors Monday afternoon and the league just wants to take a bit more time to evaluate the situation before making a final decision on whether it will go ahead with the draft virtually after the event scheduled for Montreal was cancelled.

All the governors had a chance to express their opinions on the idea of holding the draft before the regular season is actually completed and now the league wants to take a step back before determining how it will conduct the lottery plus the draft under that scenario.

The expectation is if all this goes as planned the made-for-television lottery, with proper physical distancing, will be conducted closer to the end of this month and then the draft itself will be held in mid-to-late June which is the time the NHL hopes that teams are also hoping to be gearing up to make a return from the pause that started March 12 because of COVID-19.

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