Bettman makes brutal decision with salaries of players involved in World Juniors scandal

PUBLICATION

Liam McCormick
February 5, 2024 (4:05 PM)

SHARE THIS STORY

In the last week, news broke across the hockey world that five NHL players had to surrender themselves to London Police to face allegations and charges for an incident that took place involving the 2018 Canadian World Juniors team. Carter Hart, Dillon Dube, Michael McLeod, and Cal Foote all took indefinite leave from their respective NHL teams, and Alex Formenton returned from Switzerland.

Now, the NHL has updated their official stance on how these players will affect their team's rosters. According to Darren Dreger, all teams will receive salary cap relief for all charged players.

It's an awful decision from the NHL to decide to completely bail these teams out for clear errors in judgement they made by signing players involved in the investigation. Specifically, McLeod and Foote were both signed this offseason while there was a clear possibility of them being implicated, as teams knew the results of the investigation were coming this year.

It's not a great look for the NHL to bail the teams out for the players' contracts this season. Luckily for all involved, none of the implicated players have a contract signed for beyond this year.

Obviously, it's completely unknown is any teams knew of their players being named in the investigation specifically, but the Ottawa Senators' actions with Alex Formenton, and reports of the Flyers trying to trade Carter Hart implies that they did know. If that's the case, it's awful that the NHL will be bailing out the contracts, specifically those of McLeod and Foote signed this offseason.