Vancouver Canucks owner Francesco Aquilini appeared to fire longtime anthem singer Mark Donnelly after he confirmed he's singing at an anti-mask rally on Saturday.

The British Columbia Christmas Freedom Rally 2020 is set to occur Saturday in Vancouver. Those involved are protesting COVID-19 restrictions imposed for the holiday season.

"I sing 'O Canada' as a sign of unity and strength for all Canadians," Donnelly said. "The true north strong and free."

The Canucks made a statement prior to Aquilini's tweet condemning Donnelly's involvement at the event.

"Mark Donnelly is acting independently and we hope the public understands he is not representing the Vancouver Canucks," said COO Trent Carroll. "We encourage everyone to wear a mask and to follow the provincial health orders."

Donnelly began singing for the Canucks in 2001.

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The Minnesota Wild won't have one of their key playmakers in the lineup when the 2020-21 campaign begins.

Mats Zuccarello will not be ready for the start of the season after undergoing right arm surgery several weeks ago, according to The Athletic's Michael Russo. The winger left his native Norway for Minnesota to consult with his team's medical staff, reports Russo.

Doctors found a torn ligament in Zuccarello's arm, and the 33-year-old played through the injury for most of 2019-20, Russo adds. It's the same arm Zuccarello broke in his first game with the Dallas Stars in 2018-19.

The 10-year veteran produced 15 goals and 22 assists in 65 games for the Wild last season. It was his first with Minnesota after signing a five-year, $30-million contract with the club as a free agent on July 1, 2019.

Zuccarello spent his first eight campaigns and much of his ninth with the New York Rangers before they traded him to the Stars in February 2019. He ultimately played only two regular-season games and 13 playoff contests before signing with the Wild.

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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. (Part 1 is about replacing the draft lottery. Parts 3 and 4 will arrive Monday and Tuesday, respectively.)

Picture this: It's Sunday, April 7, 2019, hours removed from the NHL regular season and three days before playoff action begins. The Tampa Bay Lightning, who laid waste to the competition for the past six months - winning 62 of 82 games - have earned the right to choose their first-round opponent in the Eastern Conference. That pick is due to the league office in advance of a selection show airing Sunday night on national TV.

It's a gigantic decision that could smooth their path through the first round. Or it could blow up in their face.

Tampa Bay could tap the Columbus Blue Jackets, who recorded the fewest points among East playoff clubs. Or perhaps the Lightning will pick the Carolina Hurricanes, who finished with just one extra point and don't boast a true No. 1 goalie. And then, there are the Toronto Maple Leafs, who are, essentially, Lightning Light.

The Lightning were 3-0 in the regular season against both Columbus and Carolina and 3-1 against Toronto, a division rival. Now they get to pick their poison.

In reality, the 2018-19 Lightning were automatically paired with the wild-card Blue Jackets, who went on to sweep Tampa Bay. Maybe the Hurricanes or Maple Leafs would have made quick work of the Lightning, too. But that's not the point.

What matters is that such a decision would add a layer of suspense and intrigue to the NHL campaign. The top regular-season team each year claims the Presidents' Trophy and home-ice advantage for the duration of its playoff run. What if that club also had an influence on the first-round matchups?

This hypothetical has played out at lower levels of hockey. Teams in the ICE Hockey League of Austria have been choosing opponents since the 2012-13 postseason in its "Playoff Pick." The Southern Professional Hockey League did something similar - called the "Challenge Round" - in the 2017-18 and 2018-19 postseasons.

"If you're the NHL and you want people to obsessively talk about you, have some drama," former SPHL president Jim Combs said in a recent interview.

In the SPHL's case, the regular-season points leader picked its opponent from a pool of four teams that finished fifth through eighth in the standings for a best-of-three series. The second and third seeds in the 10-team, division-free league followed suit, leaving the fourth-place club to link up with the remaining playoff contender. (Teams were reseeded in the second round and paired according to their regular-season point totals.)

The SPHL - which introduced three-on-three overtime in 2004, a decade before the NHL did - is a rung below the ECHL on the North American pro hockey ladder. Its franchises are clustered in the United States' Midwest and Southeast, in places like Huntsville, Alabama; Pensacola, Florida; and Peoria, Illinois. Therefore, travel factored into the decision-making process for teams tasked with choosing a playoff foe. The quality of the opponent, health of rosters, and recent performance were other variables commonly considered.

In the first year of Combs' experiment, the league aired an event called the Challenge Round Selection Show. Former NHLer Terry Crisp and Alabama football radio voice Eli Gold co-hosted, and, after a live audience rained boos on Combs a la Gary Bettman, the president revealed each pick.

If it sounds gimmicky, that's because it was. But there was also an undeniable appeal to the whole gambit, and Combs - who left the SPHL in 2018 to pursue other opportunities - remains bullish on the idea.

"In the NHL, we already know who is going to play who. There's no point in talking about who's going to match up with who (as the regular season winds down) because it's already set by the standings," Combs said. "Well, with the Challenge Round, we put the onus on those top teams to pick who they think they can beat.

"Sometimes the one-seed doesn't want to touch the eight-seed because eight could have been terrible for the last two months but they got their best players back recently, are on a hot streak, winning lots over the last three weeks, and really have a lot of momentum coming into the playoffs. Now, what do they do?"

Combs borrowed the idea from former NHL linesman and referee Lyle Seitz, who since 2011 has been the director of hockey operations for ICE. Seitz reports parallel benefits to the Challenge Round in his loop's Playoff Pick format, including heightened intensity in the regular season as teams jockey for position throughout the standings, great publicity for the postseason through a widely watched TV spectacle, bulletin-board material for the lower-end teams, and an extra incentive and reward for the elite clubs.

"The owners and players mostly like it," Seitz said. "The major complaints I get are from the coaches. It's not as if they don't like the idea, it's just that all the pressure's on them."

Therein lies the fundamental problem with the pick-your-opponent proposal, at least from the NHL's perspective. It's often dismissed as "bush league," or something below the standards of the world's top association. So, who among the owners, managers, coaches, and players would ever champion such an outside-the-box concept?

"It might be great for (the SPHL), but it's not something I'd encourage our league to do, and I couldn't see it ever happening," Dallas Stars general manager Jim Nill said in 2018.

"I don't like it," Washington Capitals GM Brian MacLellan told Craig Custance of The Athletic in March. "I like to play who you're supposed to play. You play a whole season to get your spot in the standings and you play it out. I imagine, if you're picking someone it'll be a little motivation to the team you're picking, 'Oh really? You're picking us?'"

MacLellan raises a valid point. There's nothing wrong with the NHL playoffs' level of entertainment. The on-ice product sells itself year after year, sans gimmicks. And as the old saying goes, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

The NHL held a fantasy draft ahead of the annual All-Star Weekend for five years from 2011 through 2015, during which captains chose their teammates for the weekend. By all accounts, it went well in terms of production and buzz. A similar show before the playoffs would be an entirely different beast, however, with the stakes infinitely higher and tone much more serious.

"The fans liked it. The coaches hated it. It's a great idea until you pick a fight with someone," Combs said, laughing at the memory of the SPHL's experiment. "My favorite part about being involved in the Challenge Round was that I administered it, was involved in the show, but there was no pressure on me. I didn't have to pick an opponent, no one picked me."

The selection show would be somewhat familiar to NHL fans, too. It would essentially serve as the draft lottery on steroids. Instead of Bill Daly flipping over a giant card to reveal who has the first overall pick, the NHL's deputy commissioner would unveil exactly how Playoff Team X feels about Playoff Team Y, manufacturing hysteria in multiple markets. The drama, then, would begin prior to Game 1 puck drop, not at some point during the series.

Keith Yandle is in favor of the concept, though the Florida Panthers defenseman admitted last year he's probably in the minority. Combs said one NHL team absolutely loved the idea when the SPHL first unveiled its plans in 2017. An executive told him the club's hockey operations staff debated the merits of potential opponents for hours on end.

There's a case to be made that the 2020-21 NHL season would be an ideal time to introduce the pick-your-opponent concept, as it will be a shortened campaign. TV ratings were down for the 24-team bubbled postseason, and this twist, which Major League Baseball has also discussed, would spice up the schedule. Let's not forget, changing the playoff format is not without precedent in the NHL.

"Is it a good thing? I would say 100%," Seitz said. "Would the NHL ever do it? I would say no. Because they follow traditions."

John Matisz is theScore's national hockey writer.

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The NHL shared multiple draft schedules for the 2020-21 season with the National Hockey League Players' Association on Thursday, including one for a 56-game campaign, sources told TSN's Frank Seravalli.

The draft schedules are reportedly based on a Jan. 1 start date, but both sides have considered pushing that date back. A Jan. 15 start date is now being discussed as Jan. 1 no longer seems realistic, a source told TSN's Pierre LeBrun.

A 52-game season is also under consideration, LeBrun adds, but both the NHL and the NHLPA reportedly prefer a 56-game schedule.

It's clear the league won't play a full 82-game season since it apparently wants to conclude the Stanley Cup Final by early July, but it reportedly won't stage anything shorter than a 48-game slate; the league used a 48-game schedule during the lockout-shortened 2012-13 campaign.

Seravalli added that these talks are unrelated to the NHL's recent economic requests.

Discussions for the coming season hit a snag when the league asked players to defer 20% of their salaries with escrow rising to 25%. Players originally agreed to defer 10% of their salaries with escrow capped at 20% when the two sides agreed to a new CBA prior to the return to play.

Commissioner Gary Bettman insisted Wednesday the league is "not trying to renegotiate" the CBA.

The players' union is apparently prepared for the worst-case scenario. NHLPA lawyers are reportedly considering two courses of action should the league cancel the season: filing an unfair labor practice complaint or filing a grievance through an arbitrator.

The league and the NHLPA seemingly need to settle their plans within the month in order to drop the puck in January. Teams will need at least two weeks of training camp, and some players arriving from outside North America may need to quarantine for 14 days before taking the ice.

Additionally, the two sides have yet to agree on a format for the season, though an all-Canadian division seems inevitable given Canada's border restrictions. The league and the NHLPA have apparently discussed playing series of two-to-three games like those used in MLB, and at least seven teams reportedly want to play their home games outdoors.

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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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