NHL teams unsure of future for players acquitted of sexual assault

While five members of Canada’s 2018 world junior team acquitted of sexual assault are not yet allowed to sign or play in the NHL, their futures are a topic of conversation as training camps open around the league.

Carter Hart, Michael McLeod, Dillon Dube, Cal Foote and Alex Formenton are eligible to sign Oct. 15 and play Dec. 1 as part of their reinstatement process. A judge in London, Ontario, in a ruling handed down in late July acquitted them of charges stemming from an incident there seven years earlier.

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After Philadelphia general manager Daniel Briere said the Flyers would not be bringing back Hart, Edmonton counterpart Stan Bowman echoed the sentiment Wednesday that the Oilers would not be pursuing the goaltender.

“Right now we’re not looking at those types of situations,” Bowman said of Hart. “I like where (Stuart Skinner is) at with the way he trained and his outlook coming into the year, so I think we’re going to go forward with that.”

Toronto Maple Leafs’s Brad Treliving, who drafted Dube in Calgary, said looking at adding any of those players has not been the Maple Leafs’ focus.

“You’ve got to be comfortable — not only on the ice, but off the ice, and be familiar with history and background and all the rest of it,” Treliving said when asked about the calculus and weighing the potential scrutiny of adding any of the five. “And in certainly that case, we would have to go through a process with everything that’s happened.”

Ottawa controls Formenton’s rights, even though he is not under contract and has been playing in Switzerland since 2022. Senators GM Steve Staios said he spoke with Formenton’s agent and that the sides agreed it was best to move on.

McLeod and Foote were with New Jersey before the charges and their contracts expired. Devils GM Tom Fitzgerald is expected to speak to reporters Thursday after his team’s first practice sessions of camp.