NHL's top insider reveals new details behind Vegas punishment from the NHL.

Last week the National Hockey League shocked the hockey community when they announced that the Vegas Golden Knights were being stripped of their 2nd round draft pick this year and that their head coach, John Tortorella, was being slapped with a $100,000 fine.

To most it seemed like an excessive punishment, especially given the stated reason of flagrant violations of the NHL's media policies, but on Monday morning the NHL's top insider shared additional details regarding why such a harsh punishment was handed down.

"The league had indicated that they had warned Vegas about some stuff before... I did hear that there were a couple of requests that were turned down and you're not supposed to turn down rights holder requests unless there's a good reason," revealed Friedman on the 32 Thoughts podcast.

However Friedman points to one specific incident that has yet to be mentioned in reports surrounding this situation, one that he says caused a light bulb to go off in his head.

"Then I heard, and I was told this by a couple different people, that there was a request for someone on Vegas to wear a microphone and it was turned down," said Friedman. "When I heard that, I knew why they got hammered."

Once Friedman heard the microphone story his perspective changed drastically, due to the insider's familiarity with the NHL's commissioner, Gary Bettman. According to Friedman, Bettman made it very clear years ago that this exact situation would be dealt with very harshly in a memo he personally sent out to teams across the league.

"At the beginning of every year the league calls all the coaches and the gms to a meeting... and a couple years ago Colin Campbell said 'You guys are going to have to wear mics and we don't wanna hear no,'" revealed Friedman. "They told them they were gonna have to wear it and that year a couple of coaches started to say no, and Bettman himself sent a memo where he made it very clear that he considered it paramount to the success of the league that these microphones be worn. I believe he even used the line 'The future of our league is at stake' and he made it very clear that he would take it as like a personal affront if people turned down wearing microphones."

Bettman's personal involvement in this story certainly explains why the punishment was so harsh but it may also mean that the chances of it being reduced, as many suspect it will be, are also drastically lower.

"So when I heard that was in the mix here and then this happened, I'm not surprised," said Friedman. "I'm not surprised that he hit both the organization and Tortorella."

In fact the insider revealed that there are some within the NHL who felt the Golden Knights were practically taunting Bettman before this punishment was handed down.

"I think another reason Bettman did this is because it became an annoyance that was too big. Somebody compared it to waiving a red cape in front of a bull named Bettman, eventually he was going to say 'Enough of this.'" revealed Friedman.