NHL President, Content & Events Steve Mayer talks de-centralized NHL Draft, Hosting in Los Angeles & Future

Happy Thursday, Insiders!

Sharing what I thought was a pretty fun interview with Steve Mayer from the NHL. Mayer is the President of Content & Events with the league and is one of the NHL’s key decision makers when it comes to events like the NHL Draft. This season’s draft is unique in that the league moved away from the typical format of having everyone in person in one city, moving to a remote draft from the team standpoint, similar to 2020 and 2021. The Kings have built a war room in their practice facility at Toyota Sports Performance Center for their staff to work from, which has its pros and cons.

The pros are that conversation can be freely had, without trying to hide information from the team sitting one table over. In speaking with some of the Kings scouts, they seem to prefer this format, which gives everyone the chance to do their business in person, behind closed doors. The cons, as Mark Yannetti pointed out, might come with regards to a potential trade. No longer can you walk three tables over to make an offer or clarify an offer. It’s all done now over the phone, which he said could potentially complicate things on Day 2 in particular. Time will tell, I suppose.

Anyway, sharing the interview below for a bit of a behind-the-scenes look at what could be unique about the draft here in Los Angeles.

A few takeaways from the interview that I thought were really interesting as we head into Day 1 tomorrow and also begin to speculate about the future of the NHL Draft and what that might mean for those involved.

– The decision to move from an in-person format to a de-centralized format was one made from the general managers around the NHL.

That group put it to a vote and in a “majority” the 32 GM’s decided on the concept of a remote, decentralized draft. He believes it ultimately came down to budget, travel and logistics of bringing such a large contingent to one area, but admitted he doesn’t know 100 percent what led to the drastic shift. After the 2024 NHL Draft at The Sphere, Mayer thought the GM’s might opt to re-vote and change the plans for next season. I would personally say that last season’s draft was the coolest one I’ve been to and others with more experience around the league have felt similarly. Ultimately, that re-vote never came and the league proceeded with the 2025 version of the draft that will see team brass remain at home while the show and event happens at the Peacock Theater in Los Angeles.

– So why the Peacock Theater and why Los Angeles?

For starters, the NHL hosted its Centennial Celebration there back in 2017. Los Angeles is, as we know, the “entertainment capital of the world” and without team leaders attending the event in person, Mayer and the league wanted to find a host city that could help improve the entertainment quality of the event, to continue to make it special for prospects in attendance. Mayer shared that each team had the opportunity to have someone special introducing their first-round selection live at the podium. There are lots of moving parts there but each team was presented with that opportunity, whether it be a notable alum, a celebrity fan or perhaps someone else with a connection to the city or organization. Teams with multiple picks and potential trades are what makes it complicated, but there should be some cool integrations there. Mayer also highlighted a strong working relationship between the NHL and the Kings, including a successful collaboration on the Skate for LA Strong back in February, as something that made Southern California an easy choice. Mayer said he’s expecting a strong contingent of Kings supporters to be there in person, based on event ticket sales, which should still make it feel like the Kings are hosting, even though it’s less so than if the draft were at Crypto.com Arena.

– One thing I found very interesting was Mayer confirming that prospect attendance this season is actually expected to be very similar to what it was in past years. Moving to a 7,000 seat theater from say an 18,000 seat arena, I’d have assumed there would be less, but I guess that’s why you don’t assume. He estimated that number of attendees to be just shy of 100 prospects and their families in person this weekend. From the intel that he and the league have, it sounds as if it shouldn’t be a huge drop off. Part of what makes the draft special is seeing the prospects in person, getting selected, whether that be in Round 1 or Round 7. Mayer said the job from there is to give those prospects a special experience that equals what someone got when selected in person.

After a player is selected, they’ll enter into an immediate video call with team brass. For the Kings, it’ll be Ken Holland, Mark Yannetti and other key executives, who will be together at Toyota Sports Performance Center in the LA Kings locker room, with a national reporter bridging that gap. Should be a cool setup and interested to see how it plays out in real time.

– Moving forward, Mayer said that the draft is a bit of an unknown. He said he’s heard “rumblings” the same way that we all have with regards to what next season’s event could look like. He said that as of this time, nothing has been decided and that the General Managers don’t reconvene until September, which would be the earliest they could put the logistics of next season’s draft to a vote. He expects that will happen in one form or another, with regards to the vote but isn’t for sure on what might happen there. As of today, the NHL has not reserved a draft site for 2026, whether that be decentralized or not, adding that the league has made “zero decisions” to this point. As was the rationale for moving to this format, the same goes for the rationale for potentially moving away from it. It’ll be up to the league’s general managers to decide and then the league will go from there. Everyone needs to see how this year goes and then, from there, we’ll see what next steps look like.

The draft is set to begin in just over 24 hours in Los Angeles. As of this writing, the Kings have the 24th selection in the first round and seven selections in total. With that being said, a lot can happen between now and then and there’s a lot of conversation ongoing with regards to potentially moving off that pick, preferably down, or even potentially moving that pick out.