Chris Driedger might have to wear his new mask at all times.

The Florida Panthers goaltender provided an early glimpse of his new headgear Thursday night. It features both Baby Yoda and Din Djarin, the two primary protagonists from "The Mandalorian."

The critically acclaimed series debuted in November 2019 and is currently in its second season.

Driedger is about as inexperienced in the NHL as Baby Yoda is at life, though the 26-year-old netminder did spend parts of the last seven campaigns in the minors before excelling in limited action with the Panthers last season. He posted a .938 save percentage in 12 games for Florida in 2019-20.

Baby Yoda has become a viral star since the show first aired, and while Driedger might not match the beloved infant's mainstream appeal, this is the way to become a fan favorite.

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The New York Rangers will not release 2020 No. 1 overall draft pick Alexis Lafreniere to Team Canada to compete in the upcoming world juniors, Hockey Canada confirmed Thursday.

"After ongoing discussions with the New York Rangers, Hockey Canada has been informed that Alexis Lafreniere will not be released to represent Canada at the 2021 IIHF World Junior Championship in Edmonton. Although we are disappointed Alexis will not be able to join our team for world juniors, we understand and respect the decision made by the Rangers," said senior vice president of Canada's national teams Scott Salmond.

Salmond said last week Lafreniere joining Canada is "not out of the question."

Lafreniere dominated the event in 2020, leading Canada to a gold medal and winning tournament MVP after posting 10 points in five games.

This year's tournament is scheduled to begin Christmas Day.

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While it's still unclear whether fans will be able to attend NHL games if and when the 2020-21 season begins, some teams are starting to get creative in order to potentially have spectators in attendance.

At least four teams - the Los Angeles Kings, Anaheim Ducks, Pittsburgh Penguins, and Boston Bruins - have investigated the idea of playing home games outdoors to allow people to attend, reports Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman.

The Carolina Hurricanes, Dallas Stars, and Nashville Predators have also told the league that they're interested in playing outdoors, reports The Athletic's Pierre LeBrun.

The Kings were the first team to kick the idea around several months ago, Friedman added, as the team's ownership also owns Dignity Health Sports Park - a soccer stadium with a 27,000-person capacity that's home to the LA Galaxy.

Meanwhile, the Bruins have talked to city officials about different options and are in an "exploratory phase" regarding using Fenway Park. The Penguins have looked into Heinz Field and PNC Park.

Friedman cautions the plan is a long shot but adds teams are simply doing their due diligence by exploring all options. The costs of outdoor games are likely too high, and they would also require player approval.

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As we await word on the fate of the 2020-21 NHL season, theScore is revisiting innovative ideas from different corners of the hockey world. Consider this four-part series food for thought during a most unusual offseason. (Parts 2 to 4 will run Friday, Monday, and Tuesday.)

Adam Gold's idea about the NHL's draft order was hatched out of a moment of frustration back in March 2008. The regular season was nearly finished, the Steven Stamkos-headlined draft was approaching, and Gold - a die-hard St. Louis Blues fan - could only shake his head at the television.

"John Davidson shouldn't have to go on TV for an interview and have to say something like that," Gold recalls thinking as he watched the former Blues president promise fans their favorite hockey team wasn't losing on purpose.

That surreal but not entirely unique scene - an executive feeling compelled to publicly assure supporters that winning, not losing, remains the goal every night - led to Gold developing what's now known as the "Gold Plan," or as he's called it since it was first publicized, the "NHL Draft Order Based on Mathematical Elimination."

The premise is straightforward: rather than the league's worst teams entering a lottery each spring to determine the order of the upcoming draft, picks are doled out based on point accumulation starting when a team is mathematically eliminated from postseason contention. At the end of the regular season, the team with the most post-elimination points is awarded the first overall selection, followed by the team with the second-most, and so on.

What are the benefits and drawbacks of this idea? Let's investigate.

The case for the Gold Plan

The core objective is to rewire the incentive system for teams outside the playoff picture. In this scenario, all 82 games would matter to all 31 teams because the NHL would reward winning over losing, which, in turn, would discourage teams from tanking to chase higher draft-lottery odds.

"The value of a win should always be more than the value of a loss," Gold, a 36-year-old data scientist working in agriculture, told theScore. "A fan from any team could look at the schedule of remaining games and want to win each or any game remaining."

This mindset is in stark contrast with what the hockey world witnessed on March 26, 2015, when Buffalo Sabres fans were openly cheering for the opposing team, the Arizona Coyotes, during a late-season home game. The sparkling prize for finishing last that season was a 20% shot at the No. 1 draft pick, Connor McDavid. Sabres fans simply couldn't help themselves. (Of course, the last-place Sabres - who dropped that game in overtime - didn't end up winning the lottery. They picked another future star, Jack Eichel, at No. 2.)

"The second you start convincing someone to cheer against you, you're one step closer to losing them as a fan," former Coyotes captain and Gold Plan supporter Shane Doan told Sarah McLellan of AZ Central a year later.

Though the McDavid tankfest was an extreme example, there are legions of fans every year who come to a realization at some point in the second half of the season that their team's short-term ineptitude is better for the franchise's long-term outlook. So they cheer for penalties and goals against, losses, and losing streaks. And it's hard to blame them. The current system is closely linked to bottoming out in the standings, though it's also tempered by the luck of the lottery.

Case in point, the upstart New York Rangers in October made Alexis Lafreniere the first overall pick after winning the lottery with just 2.5% odds. Meanwhile, the Detroit Red Wings, who are in the middle of a substantial rebuild, had no incentive to improve their roster for or during the 2019-20 season. Yet, on draft weekend, Detroit selected fourth despite entering the lottery with a league-high 18.5% odds of claiming the No. 1 pick.

It was a miserable season for Red Wings fans, and Lafreniere is now a Ranger.

"The fear of a bitter ending is an emotional decision that limits season-ticket purchases, game attendance, merchandise sales, and fan support," Gold wrote in a 2010 paper for the Journal of Quantitative Analysis in Sports.

If the NHL replaced the draft lottery with the Gold Plan, or some variant of it, the luck portion of determining the draft order would vanish, and the league's worst teams would still have a relatively strong chance at picking atop the draft.

The Red Wings, for example, were eliminated from playoff contention with a loss to the New York Islanders on Feb. 21 in their 63rd game of the season. They would have had 19 games to collect points toward winning the Gold Plan race had the season completed as usual. As it was, they collected five points in the eight games they did play. The Ottawa Senators - the team with the second-fewest points last season - weren't eliminated until March 10 and would have had only 10 games to collect points. (Ottawa lost its only contest before the regular season was halted.)

On the surface, the Gold Plan sure seems to be a smart alternative, balancing the opportunity to pick No. 1 overall with a reason to try to keep winning.

The case against the Gold Plan

The plan first gained mainstream traction after Gold presented it at the 2012 MIT Sloan Sports Analytics Conference, but it's not without its critics. Gold has attempted to address these arguments:

• This new incentive system wouldn't solve anything. Rebuilding teams would just begin tanking earlier in the season to "start the clock" on accumulating draft-order points as soon as possible.

To this, Gold notes the NHL could retroactively "start the clock" a certain period before a team is eliminated (let's say 10 games) to safeguard against any early tanking or strength-of-schedule issues that may arise. At the end of the day, he adds, if fans of bad teams are cheering for wins for the vast majority of the year, that's an improvement over the lottery.

Also, the current iteration of the Gold Plan would inevitably need tweaking.

"If you want to fully resolve the tanking and you want to get rid of any incentive to lose, it's hard to do it in a way where everyone is going to agree on the best strategy right off the bat, without it being tested," Gold said.

• The late-season race for the top pick wouldn't be all that exciting in practice. By definition, eliminated teams aren't very good and thus won't win many games. Where's the entertainment value?

The 2019-20 Red Wings, who lost an unbelievable 49 of 71 games and oftentimes looked closer to a high-functioning AHL team than a respectable NHL outfit, would qualify for this type of sad-sack squad. The Gold Plan, in theory, would discourage teams from bottoming out and starting over in the first place, which Detroit has done to some degree with its present rebuild effort.

"I believe, in a pro sports league, there should be an expectation that any team can win any game," Gold said. "Otherwise, don't expect fans to pay."

• One marquee TV event - the NHL draft lottery - would be toast with the implementation of the Gold Plan, while another - the NHL trade deadline - would lose a ton of appeal. That's bad for business.

What happens to all of those pending unrestricted free agents who swap cities ahead of the annual deadline? Do they stay put in an effort to push for the first overall pick? How does that dynamic affect the transaction market?

Why would the NHL want to water down a day in the calendar for which fans take the day off work to sit in front of the TV and think about nothing but hockey? Assuredly, the league's broadcasters wouldn't be thrilled by this development, losing out on a big day of ad sales and sponsorships.

As for the lottery, the benefits of the Gold Plan likely overpower the gains from that event, which certainly has its viral moments but can be dull and stiff.

"How many hot dogs do they sell at the lottery show? How much revenue is generated from parking to see the ping pong balls?" Gold said. "Play for the picks on the ice."

Parting thoughts

Ideally, the Gold Plan would be tested at a lower level of hockey - perhaps the major junior circuit in Canada - before the NHL takes a leap of faith on what's viewed in hockey circles as a radical idea. Communication with fans would be critical in the early stages, and there are several other considerations, including what happens when a first-round pick is swapped midseason.

Gold, who says people tend to either really love or really hate the plan, admits there would be growing pains for the league if it adopts his idea. But, in his eyes, there's little risk involved. The worst-case scenario is a U-turn back to the mechanisms in place now.

"It would be interesting if the NHL played with it for a few years, and if they don't like it they can always go back to the lottery," he said.

Gold offered an anecdote about the 2017-18 Vancouver Canucks in an effort to illustrate the plan's potential beauty.

In the club's final home game of the season, Daniel Sedin scored in overtime off a pass from his brother Henrik to cap two phenomenal careers. It was a storybook ending for the career-long Canucks, and, under the Gold Plan, the win would have vaulted Vancouver into the first-overall position for the 2018 draft.

Now, Canucks fans will gladly keep No. 7 pick Quinn Hughes given the defenseman's quick rise to stardom. But blue-chip prospect Rasmus Dahlin was the shiny object entering draft weekend, and it would have been poetic if the Canucks got a new franchise cornerstone thanks to one final highlight from the Sedin twins. A perfect passing of the torch and also a completely rational way to decide the order of the NHL draft.

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

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Thomas Vanek believes the NHL was a much rougher league earlier in his career.

"The last four-to-five years, besides (Zdeno) Chara, the league isn't that tough anymore. I think we can all agree on that," Vanek said on "The Instigators" podcast recently. "I think early on when we all played together and you got the (Chris) Prongers, the (Derian) Hatchers, that was tough.

"Standing in front of the net, there was no penalties back then. The ref would say, 'Hey, loosen up Pronger' and Pronger would look at the ref and was like 'Don't ever talk to me again.'"

The 36-year-old skipped out on the 2019-20 season, but he hasn't officially retired yet. A veteran of over 1,000 NHL games, Vanek began his career in 2005 and last played during the 2018-19 campaign.

Known for his goal-scoring abilities and net-front presence, Vanek has spent plenty of time battling in the crease. After playing throughout the last two decades, Vanek says he's seen a shift in how defensemen approach the game.

"I don't know if it was really dirty (in the past), that's the way it was - if you go in front of the net, you're taking a punishment," Vanek said. "Now the game has changed. You've got a lot of smaller defensemen who are more mobile. They cross-check a little bit, but those guys are nonexistent really anymore."

The Austrian native has amassed 373 goals and 416 assists over 1,029 career games. He's also been given his fair share of penalties, totaling 547 penalty minutes.

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Pittsburgh Penguins general manager Jim Rutherford is preparing for the possibility that he won't be able to make deals with other clubs as easily as he usually does.

Rutherford still plans to be proactive on the trade market if and when plans for the 2020-21 season are finalized, but he acknowledged transactions could be more complicated given travel restrictions amid the pandemic.

"If there are trades this season," Rutherford told The Athletic's Rob Rossi. "I don't know."

The longtime executive believes the NHL could become similar to the NFL in the upcoming season in terms of having fewer in-season swaps.

"It's probably (going to be) more like football than ever," Rutherford said. "It's probably going to be more where you set your team and that's going to be your team."

He added that though it's possible the policies are relaxed as the campaign progresses, he's going to try to fine-tune his roster as much as he can before the puck drops for the season opener.

"It may mean as the season goes along these restrictions get eased off a bit, and maybe you can start to do stuff, but these are some of the things I've started to think about," Rutherford said. "Like, you better get as many guys in place as you can because it may not be easy for somebody when the season starts."

However, the 71-year-old cautioned that he doesn't know more than anyone else at this stage, adding that if he identifies any areas of need on his team, he'll try to address them immediately.

Rutherford is one of the NHL's most active GMs when it comes to trades, having made 53 since taking the Penguins job in June 2014, according to Rossi. He's orchestrated several significant deals while with Pittsburgh, acquiring the likes of Phil Kessel and Patric Hornqvist for the Penguins' back-to-back titles before trading them both away in separate deals about one year apart.

The three-time Stanley Cup-winning GM landed current Penguins forward Jason Zucker two weeks before the 2019-20 trade deadline. He also acquired winger Kasperi Kapanen - whom he originally sent to the Toronto Maple Leafs when he first nabbed Kessel in 2015 - and defenseman Mike Matheson in August and September, respectively.

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University of North Dakota defenseman Jacob Bernard-Docker and forward Jasper Weatherby kneeled during the playing of "The Star-Spangled Banner" before their NCHC season opener against Miami University on Wednesday.

Here's a wider angle:

Bernard-Docker and Weatherby made their intentions known Tuesday. The players explained they wanted to protest racial injustice and promote equality.

Weatherby said at the time they planned to kneel only before Wednesday's contest.

The two players attended a Black Lives Matter march in Grand Forks along with North Dakota goaltender Peter Thome in the wake of George Floyd's death in police custody in May, according to the Grand Forks Herald's Brad Elliott Schlossman.

Bernard-Docker and Weatherby are also members of their school's Student-Athlete Inclusion and Diversity group that meets twice a month. Weatherby, the NCHC's player representative in a college hockey diversity group, made a list of recommendations for making his campus more inclusive and sent the suggestions to school officials.

The Fighting Hawks hosted a team movie night in November where they watched a documentary about Floyd's death, as well as another film that focused on systemic racism of Black people in the United States.

Bernard-Docker and Weatherby are junior classmates, roommates, and assistant captains for the top-ranked Fighting Hawks. Bernard-Docker is a 2018 first-round pick of the Ottawa Senators and he's one of the club's top prospects. That same year, the San Jose Sharks selected Weatherby in the fourth round.

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