Insider reveals the two teams that voted “no” to the NHL's 24 team proposal.

In many ways the vote held by the National Hockey League this week was a historic one. Player representatives from their respective NHL teams were asked to vote on the NHL's plan to resume the 2019 - 2020 season and crown a Stanley Cup Champion in 2020 and it was frankly a rather lopsided affair. According to a report from Renaud Lavoie of TVA Sports the overwhelming majority of the executive board members voted in favor of the return to play format with 29 voting in favor of the proposal and with only 2 dissenting votes being cast on the ballot. 

There was much speculation regarding who had voted against the reintroduction of the NHL season, not the least because there is a ton of money on the line here for both the players and the owners, but thus far those reports have been very conflicting. Late last night Pittsburgh Penguins defenseman Kris Letang revealed that he had voted "yes" to the proposal, refuting reports that had indicated the Penguins were one of the teams that had rejected said proposal. Now another NHL insider is reporting the names of both of the teams he believes voted no, and he seems quite confident in his statements. 

According to a breaking news report from former Sportsnet TV personality and former NHL alumni Nick Kypreos, both the Carolina Hurricanes and the Tampa Bay Lightning voted "no" in yesterday's landmark 29 - 2 vote. It should come as no surprise that the two teams who tried to opt out of the situation were both playoff bound prior to the league being forced to shut down, those teams are clearly the ones who stand the most to lose in this newly proposed format. Instead of competing against just 16 teams in the tournament both the Canes and the Lightning will now be forced to outwork 24 NHL teams if they want to be crowned the 2020 Stanley Cup Champions. 

Hurricanes owner Tom Dundon has also been openly critical of the idea of playing out games in empty arenas, even going so far as to suggest that playing a game without the fans on hand would be the equivalent of playing at the "YMCA," which may have also played a factor.