In this May 27, 2019, file photo, NHL Commissioner Gary...

In this May 27, 2019, file photo, NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman speaks to the media before Game 1 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Final between the St. Louis Blues and the Boston Bruins in Boston.  Credit: AP/Charles Krupa

There’s been plenty of speculation as to when the NHL will conduct its draft this year, with the season on pause since March 12 in response to the COVID-19 outbreak and no timeline for any potential resumption of play.

One discussed option is to conduct the draft possibly in June, before either the regular season is concluded or the playoffs can begin. For now, the uncertainty will continue after the NHL Board of Governors conducted a conference call on Monday.

“Good discussion,” NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said via e-mail. “No timeline on decision.”

The NHL draft was originally scheduled for June 26-27 in Montreal, Quebec. The league postponed it on March 25, along with the scouting combine (June 1-6 in Buffalo, New York) and its awards show (June 18 in Las Vegas).

The NFL conducted its draft via videoconferencing from April 23-25 with team officials working individually from home with the league’s facilities closed. There’s a possibility the NHL draft will have to follow that model, unless travel restrictions and guidelines minimizing the amount of people that can gather together are relaxed or team facilities are allowed to re-open.

League players and personnel have been under a self-quarantine recommendation since play was halted.

The NHL and the NHL Players’ Association issued a joint statement last week indicating it hoped to re-open its team facilities for small-group activities at some point this month if “conditions continue to trend favorably.”

But Justin Trudeau, the Prime Minister of Canada, said on Sunday players returning to that country would need to follow quarantine protocols.

“Certainly, at a strict minimum, anyone who arrives from another country will have to follow all the rules of quarantine in an extremely strict manner,” Trudeau said. “But we’re not there yet in our discussions with the NHL.”

The NFL draft, simulcast by ABC, ESPN and the NFL Network to an audience starved for live sporting events, drew record viewership for all three days. The first day’s first round averaged an audience of 15.6 million, up 37 percent from the previous year’s NFL draft.

No doubt, the NHL and its television partners paid close attention to those numbers.

“I thought they did an excellent job of how they presented it,” Islanders president and general manager Lou Lamoriello told Newsday last week. “They tried to make it sort of personal. They had a lot of work done on the players.”

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