What caused conversations to get heated at GM meetings?

The NHL held their annual general manager meetings this week, and while there was very little that emerged in terms of rule changes, the collective ears of the hockey world perked up when player agent Allan Wash shared on social media that he heard of a tense conversation between NHL commissioner Gary Bettman and an unnamed general manager.

“The GM said to Gary that it appears the league has relaxed its standards on head shots. Gary was irate with the question and blasted the GM,” Walsh said.

On Thursday’s episode of Daily Faceoff LIVE, Tyler Yaremchuk and former NHL goaltender Carter Hutton are joined by The Fourth Period’s David Pagnotta to discuss the GM meetings and what reportedly transpired.

Carter Hutton: I heard things got a little heated at the GM meetings. Could you give us a little breakdown of what went down?

David Pagnotta: Yeah, a few things. So Ducks GM Pat Verbeek and Gary Bettman had some words for each other with respect to goalie interference and how that’s being evaluated, or just defined. There’s so much ambiguity to goalie interference calls, and what the hell it really is. Verbeek got a little vocal about that, among other things. It’s not black and white, and a lot of GMs are looking for clarity.

It’s been reported that Eric Tulsky, GM of the Hurricanes, got into it with Bettman in regards to headshots and everything that’s tied to that. How do we properly, maybe not define it, but combat it and clear it up, so there are harsher penalties for those types of instances, in order for guys to … make sure they’re understanding that certain plays, you can’t do it. There’s no “oops” type of sceneario, you have to be educated in a way and know that certain things can’t be done.

You can watch the full segment and the rest of the episode here…