TORONTO — The deadline for the NHL Players Association to file a grievance against the Blackhawks over their termination of forward Corey Perry’s contract has been extended, NHLPA director Marty Walsh said Friday.
The deadline was originally in late January, 60 days after the termination.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly said Friday a grievance had been “threatened.” Reading between the lines, the extension allows the NHLPA to keep that threat open while likely pushing for a settlement.
“[Perry’s] timeline ran out, so we want to make sure we have enough time to continue forward,” Walsh said.
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said Perry believes the Hawks didn’t have proper grounds to oust him over an incident of workplace misconduct that took place Nov. 21 during a road trip to Columbus. Bettman added that he personally has no problem with how the Hawks handled the incident.
The situation could play out similarly to the way the Sharks’ termination of forward Evander Kane’s contract did. Kane was terminated in 2021 for inappropriate actions such as submitting a fake COVID-19 vaccination card but was ultimately found not to have violated his contract terms. The NHLPA filed a grievance on his behalf in January 2022 and reached a settlement with the Sharks that September.
Regardless of how things play out legally, Perry, 38, has moved on in his career. He made his Oilers debut last weekend.
NHL back to Olympics
The league announced Friday, during a news conference as part of All-Star Weekend, that it will allow its players to participate in the Winter Olympics in 2026 and 2030.
“Everybody felt on our ownership side that it was the right thing to do,” Bettman said. “This really came down to doing something because the players really wanted it.”
The 2026 Games will mark the first time NHL players have competed in the Olympics since 2014. The league didn’t allow participation in 2018 and 2022 largely due to scheduling concerns — because a multiweek break in February seriously disrupts the regular-season schedule.
Improved collaboration between the NHL and the International Ice Hockey Federation, the global governing body of hockey, paved the way for the change, along with adamant support within the NHLPA, especially from Oilers center Connor McDavid, the league’s biggest star and the winner of the $1 million All-Star Skills competition Friday in Toronto.
“I’ve been vocal about this,” McDavid said. “I feel like it’s important for hockey as we continue to try to grow our game.”
Said IIHF president Luc Tardif: “It was not easy. That’s really important. [Over] two years of work, and really intense [work] for the last six months, we learned to work together. We have a new process.”
In 2025, the NHL will host a smaller international tournament featuring four countries — the U.S., Canada, Sweden and Finland — that will replace next season’s All-Star Game. Bettman said the league hopes to begin coordinating a full World Cup of Hockey (an event last held in 2016) starting in 2028.
Hockey Canada update
Daly said NHL teams were not kept informed during the league’s two-year investigation of the Hockey Canada sexual-assault scandal from the 2018 world junior championships.
That means the Hawks couldn’t have definitively known whether Taylor Raddysh and Boris Katchouk would be implicated (beyond what Raddysh and Katchouk told them). Ultimately, however, neither Hawks forward was among the five players charged with sexual assault by police in London, Ontario, this past week.
