Steve Yzerman rips the NHL's early June draft idea.

The National Hockey League has very clearly set the table for what is an early June draft and in a memo sent out to players late last week we learned that the league was in fact moving forward with the idea at this time. 

We reported yesterday on how the memo was being received by teams and players and needless to say some of the reactions were relatively negative and given the current health risks involved in such an event, as well the likelihood that it will be a shell of the real experience for the young men being drafted into the league, you can understand why some reacted so negatively.

“They’re really trying to convince us, aren’t they?” said some of the responses from our earlier report.

“This is terrible, and I don’t support it,” said some of the replies

Those comments however were made with the knowledge that their names would not be attracted to them, but one man that is not afraid to speak his mind on the topic and do so in a very public fashion is none other than National Hockey League legend Steve Yzerman. The once great player turned All Star general manager is now at the helm of the Detroit Red Wings, one of the team's that stand to benefit the most from the new draft format proposed by the NHL in this memo, but in spite of that Yzerman very clearly expressed his disdain for the idea.

“My thought is why would you do that, why would you need to do that?” Yzerman said as per Fox Sports Detroit on Wednesday. “There’s a lot of things that are affected, obviously. The draft position hasn’t been established, we don’t know who’s in the playoffs, or who’s out of the playoffs, in some cases.

“So there’s a lot of questions, and ultimately if it needs to be done prior to, we’ll figure it out, but at this time, my own opinion is, I haven’t heard a good reason why we should do it prior to the end of the season if we do conclude the season.”

That is at least one NHL general manager who is not on board with the idea, and perhaps one with significant influence as well given his history in the league.