NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman spoke to the media this afternoon prior to the Global Series game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Buffalo Sabres.  When Gary Bettman comes to the podium, the hockey universe tends to listen to what he has to say.  Bettman touched on some hot topics, including the NHL’s involvement with the next Olympics.

Here are some of the notable quotes from Bettman’s press conference with the media today:

Bettman on the Olympics:

Bettman on Olympics: “Going to the Olympics is a challenge for us… but from our standpoint, we have found going to the Olympics to be disruptive to our season.”

— David Pagnotta (@TheFourthPeriod) November 8, 2019

Bettman on next year’s European matchups:

Bettman announces next year’s #NHLGlobalSeries games: BOS-NSH in Czech Republic for opener, COL-CBJ for 2 in Helsinki. BOS ends camp in Germany, NSH ends in Switzerland. Each play an exhibition there.

— Mike Harrington (@ByMHarrington) November 8, 2019

Bettman on future European matchups:

Bettman said NHL expects to return to Sweden again in 2021-22 season.

— Mike Harrington (@ByMHarrington) November 8, 2019

Bettman talks about games in Russia:

Another interesting nugget from Bettman: “My own belief is, if we’re going to play games in Russia — and we know there’s great interest in our game there — it would most likely be from our standpoint regular-season games with two NHL teams.”

— Nick Cotsonika (@cotsonika) November 8, 2019

ANALYSIS

-Bettman still does not seem very optimistic about the NHL players attending the next Olympics.  There is still some time left to make this decision, but Bettman feels that the Olympics will cause a great disruption to the league calendar.

-Bettman mentioned that some team owners would be concerned with losing star players due to injury during the Olympics.

-Bettman has plenty of interest in continuing the European series games.  It gives the league a good chance to highlight some of the best players from various nationalities.

By: George Foussekis