BUFFALO, N.Y. – The second edition of the NHL’s decentralized draft added star power and largely avoided the pitfalls of the inaugural run, earning high marks from the executive behind the event.
“We’ll give it the A-minus,” Steve Mayer, NHL President of Content and Events, said when asked for his assessment, “because I always want to get to the A. But I’m a tough critic.”
Family members of top prospects scrambled to pull out their phones as Justin Bieber walked down the aisle at KeyBank Center to announce Gavin McKenna as the first pick for the Maple Leafs, giving the league a viral moment that helped reach wider audiences than when Commissioner Gary Bettman announced the top selection of Matthew Schaefer a year ago. Nashville’s first-round pick got a similar bump from country star Luke Bryan, who made the announcement in person before performing at a country music festival down the street.
If ESPN’s John Buccigross had his way, broadcasters would still be able to show the look on a GM’s face as he worked a trade or learned of a rival team’s pick, rather than having them work from their own facilities. But like all good hockey minds, Buccigross knows to only worry about what he can control. Diehard hockey fans like him are already hooked; the league needs to continue making new fans to grow.
“I think it’s better when all the GMs and the scouts and the assistant GMs are there. I think there’s a feeling of electricity,” Buccigross said, “and you can kind of feel the palpable angst from the tables strewn on the floor of the arena.
“Definitely better flow from last year,” he added. “The NHL knew that [was something to improve] right away. They’re pretty self-aware.”
Round 1 still ran long -- the final pick came at 11:05pm, nearly four hours after Bieber left the stage -- but the pace throughout the night was improved and prospect and family interviews were well-received.
“Overall, maybe they could streamline it a touch more,” Buccigross said. “They wanted big, TV-show production and have it star-studded and to give it a big [feel]. The league is doing well, so certainly a lot of their decisions, production-wise ... these are their moments to kind of put on a show.”
Mayer acknowledged connection issues led Bettman to drop an interview with sixth-overall pick Carson Carels from his family’s farm in Manitoba, and a talkback with GM of the Year Bill Guerin felt clunky. But after repeated issues last year, which Buccigross described as “a bit of a technical gong show,” brief trouble connecting to rural Canada felt like a win.
“We were prepared to bring [Carels] in from where he was, and that’s a great credit to our technical team,” Mayer said. “You gotta realize, technically, it’s holy shit, if you excuse me for how I say it, but we have to have, in real time, 32 teams being able to do all of their picking and getting the information and the data and all of the things, all that has to be coordinated. That was seamless [Friday] night, we had no issues there. We’re bringing in 32 feeds from all the teams that are in war rooms. We’re bringing in celebrities to make picks. We’re having audio and video that has to look amazing. Like, the amount of coordination and the team that we’ve got working on this, that was amazing, just amazing. It comes across -- I hope -- seamlessly, but there’s so many things that could go wrong that thankfully didn’t.”
Mayer is eager to see the audience and social numbers for the draft after feeling like his entire feed was dominated by posts about Bieber’s appearance.
“There’s all these moments that, again, whether you’re a huge fan of hockey, or you’re just a fan of sports, or you’re just an entertainment fan, you know about the NHL draft today,” Mayer said. “And in this world of so much going on -- and right now, right in the heat of the World Cup -- like, you gotta be really proud that we cut through the clutter. We cut through the clutter [Friday] night, and we got attention on our draft. And that, to me, is a win -- a big win for the NHL.”
