NHL will decide ‘in relatively near future’ on reinstating five acquitted players in 2018 sexual assault trial

Sep 9, 2025, 15:08 EDT

Cal Foote, Dillon Dube, Carter Hart, Michael McLeod and Alex Formenton from the 2018 World Juniors

The five Canadian World Junior team members charged with the sexual assault of a woman following a team event in 2018 – Michael McLeod, Carter Hart, Dillon Dube, Alex Formenton and Cal Foote – were found not guilty by Supreme Court Justice Maria Carroccia on July 24 following a three-month trial. Since the news of the verdict broke, questions have swirled on when – or if – the NHL will reinstate the five players, none of whom has played in the NHL since midway through the 2023-24 season or earlier.

Speaking to a small group of media at the NHL Player Media Tour in Las Vegas Tuesday morning, NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly provided an update on the potential reinstatement of the five players.

“I do anticipate there will be a decision at some point in the relatively near future,” Daly said.

Reinstating McLeod, Hart, Dube, Formenton and Foote isn’t automatic simply because they were acquitted. There were some irrefutable facts brought forward during the trial that, while they didn’t represent sufficient evidence to convict, certainly didn’t reflect well on the players’ character. The various demeaning text messages sent between them the night of the assault weren’t deemed worthy of a guilty verdict in Justice Carroccia’s eyes (and some where not admissible as evidence), but do they reflect the way the NHL wants it athletes to carry themselves? Could the reinstatement process thus still be subjective?

“This really goes more to the merits of what we were looking at and considering,” Daly told Daily Faceoff Tuesday. “And so, I won’t address that specifically, but, obviously, we take the matter very seriously, and that’s why it’s still under review.”

Daly also fielded questions on several other league matters Tuesday. Among the updates he shared:

– The NHL’s investigation into the Edmonton Oilers’ usage of Evander Kane on long-term injured reserve before activating him for their second game of the 2024-25 Stanley Cup playoffs, and whether they complied with the collective bargaining agreement, is complete. No punishment will be meted out, Daly explained.

“Evander was one of many individuals we looked at last year, and it was a close one, right?” Day told The Athletic’s Pierre LeBrun. “It was a close one as to whether he was capable of playing at the end of the season and didn’t. “And we were concerned that if that were the circumstance, in case it may be a circumvention of the salary cap, and we made the Oilers aware of that. Evander did not play the first game of the playoffs, but he played the second game of the playoffs. In any event, it’s a closed matter.”

– The process is underway for selecting a host city for the 2028 World Cup of Hockey, which will feature eight countries competing in best-on-best action. The league hopes to announce a host early in 2026.

“I’d say two thirds of the cities who host franchises in North America expressed interest,” Daly said. “I don’t know how many will go on to the bid process. And then I’d say 15 to 20 in Europe.”

The IIHF has no affiliation with the World Cup, so the question had to be asked: does that open the door for Russia to participate in its first major international tournament since its invasion of Ukraine in winter 2022 got it barred by the IIHF?

“The door remains open currently,” Daly told Daily Faceoff. “That’s a discussion we’re going to have to have, not only us and the Players’ Association setting the rules, but the participating organizations in the World Cup will have at least a voice on that issue. And again, there’s nothing that’s changed materially since March of 2022 that would suggest a different response. But we still have some time.”

– Daly essentially confirmed Tuesday that the NHL’s decentralized Draft format is here to stay another year and that efforts will be made to pare down the egregiously long runtime that turned the first round into a punchline this past June.

“We put out a memo to our clubs literally the Sunday, maybe Monday after the Draft,” Daly told The Hockey News’ Ryan Kennedy. “They got their feedback right away. It was clear that while it wasn’t as overwhelming a vote as it was the first time we asked, it was still a strong majority. We wanted that decentralized Draft. It was the first time we’ve done it. From a production standpoint, I think there are going to be significant changes. It’s not going to be a four-and-a-half hour first round.”

– Daly revealed that NHLPA executive director Marty Walsh proposed the idea of players getting a cut of the gargantuan expansion fees new franchises pay to enter the league, the current bar set at $650 million, paid by the Seattle Kraken, but expected to reach $2 billion for the next entrant. The league did not agree, Daly explained, adding, “that’s never been done in any major sports league and we weren’t about to break new ground.”

– The Milano Santagiulia Ice Hockey Arena, the hockey facility for the 2026 Milano Cortina Olympics in February, isn’t completed yet, but Daly expressed optimism about the construction process.

“It’s being worked on diligently, what I last heard,” he said. “I do think some of the dynamics with the contractor and subcontractors have changed in a positive way that has created more progress on the building from a timeline perspective. The organizing committee is supposed to have access to the facility as early as the end of next month. They also have a test event that is scheduled for December, which will be more hockey related and less fan related. In other words, they’re not going to be prepared to host a full building of spectators. We’ll find out in early December how far away we are.”

NHL, NHLPA, NHL Alumni Association launch Retired Players Emergency Healthcare and Wellness fund

Daly, NHLPA assistant executive director Ron Hainsey and NHL Alumni association executive director and president Glenn Healy were on hand Tuesday in Vegas to share details on an initiative established in the NHL and NHLPA’s 2025 Memorandum of Understanding for their new CBA: the Retired Players Emergency Healthcare and Wellness fund.

The program is designed to protect former players, whether they have “one shift or 10,000 games,” per Healy, offering continued care for their physical and mental health, with $4 million contributed to the fund over the course of the CBA. Per the MOU, the contributions are broken down as:

• “$2 million annually to the EAF, specifically designated to assist NHLAA members facing catastrophic health issues without health insurance coverage and experiencing financial hardship.”

• “$2 million annually designated to identify resources and programs to provide wellness support for NHLAA members, regardless of where they currently reside.”

“What has been handed to me now is the ability to make tomorrow better today for a bunch of players,” Healy said. “The NHL career, it’s a short career and it’s a long life. And they don’t collide sometimes. And so it’s up to me to pick up some of those pieces. So from the PA standpoint, it’s a big thank you. It’s a unique brotherhood to be an NHL player. What the PA has done is they’ve allowed me to carry on that legacy to take care of one another, to protect one another.”

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