CALGARY, Alberta — The next battleground between the NHL and NHLPA — and perhaps the first significant confrontation between the league and union since Owners’ Lockout III was settled — can be expected to be fought over rules of an expansion draft that could be held in June 2017.

There likely are to be myriad issues, but specifically, the PA will insist players with no-move clauses be exempt from exposure to the draft, a source with knowledge of the union’s philosophy told Slap Shots.

The league has not declared its position on the matter, but it is important to note that Article 11.8 (c) of the CBA states: “A no-move clause may prevent the involuntary relocation of a Player whether by Trade, Loan or Waiver claim.”

According to an email correspondence from deputy commissioner Bill Daly, the concept of including expansion draft claim in the no-move clause “was never discussed” in either the 2004-05 or 2012-13 collective bargaining negotiations.

Asked if the NHL would register a contract in which exemption from expansion draft exposure was written into a no-move clause, Daly responded: “There is standard ‘no-move’ language that is contemplated by the CBA. We wouldn’t be inclined to permit a variation of that.”

Understand. Rules of expansion, including rules or an expansion draft, will be subject to collective bargaining. It is as such by basic U.S. labor law as well as by precedent as applied to past NHL expansions, even as the next expansion draft will be the first one conducted under a hard cap.

Furthermore, the league recognizes, and seems to embrace, its obligation to negotiate expansion draft rules.

“I wouldn’t intend to unilaterally issue rules for the expansion draft, regardless of whether I had the contractual right to do so,” Daly wrote. “This is something we are going to talk through with the Union and hopefully we can both be on the same page.”

Yes, of course, because history informs us that negotiations between the two parties have always been resolved without a hitch.

Question unique to this first cap expansion: Will new franchises actually start operation with, say, $75 million of cap space with which to fill its respective rosters and thus be enabled to offer lavish contracts to free agents that existing, successful, cap-stressed teams would be unable to match?

Another question: Where will these teams (or team) select in the Entry Draft? In the last expansion of 2000-01, the Wild and Blue Jackets selected third and fourth, respectively. Minnesota thus was able to select Marian Gaborik while Columbus went with Rostislav Klesla.

That, by the way, was the year Mike Milbury went with Rick DiPietro as the first overall selection in conjunction with trading Roberto Luongo to the Panthers. Yes, folks, the Islanders could have begun the millennium’s first full season with Luongo and either Gaborik or Dany Heatley (selected second overall by Atlanta). You already know that, the NHL’s lead network studio analyst already knows that, but it’s always worth mentioning when the opportunity arises.

But we digress.

Several club executives have told Slap Shots they are keenly interested in this Entry Draft selection order. Indeed, one can expect heated debate within the Board before the league begins to negotiate the rules of order with the union.

More than one team executive told Slap Shots that expansion rules must be settled by this June, at the latest, as these regulations will have significant impact on contract negotiations and personnel decisions this summer.

Good luck with that.

Glen Sather, the only man to coach Team Canada to defeat against Team USA in a best-on-best tournament, to this day refuses to accept that the Yanks actually won the 1996 World Cup in Game 3 of the spectacular best-of-three final round.

That was the game in which Brett Hull tied the game 2-2 with 3:18 remaining in the third period on a goal that Team Canada insisted had been scored on an illegal high stick. Tony Amonte then scored another disputed goal from in front with 2:35 to play, Canada claiming it had been kicked in. Both goals were upheld by video review before the Americans scored twice more to win, 5-2.

“No way that the U.S. won that,” Sather insisted this week. “I was even talking to Burkie [U.S.-born Brian Burke, who has been a staple on Team USA management staffs for international events] at the Governors meeting and he admitted it was a high stick.

“We didn’t lose that! Come on!”

Bill Torrey, meanwhile, said he had no kick with Sather’s Oilers knocking off his dynastic Islanders in their Drive for Five in the 1984 finals.

Of course, Torrey did remind Slap Shots that was the first year the NHL adopted a 2-3-2 schedule for the final round, meaning after splitting the first two games at the Coliseum, the Islanders then went to Edmonton for Games 3, 4 and 5, all of which they lost.

“Lookit,” said Torrey, whose team entered that series having won 19 consecutive playoff rounds, a world’s professional sports record that has never been threatened. “By that time we were a little beat up and they were on the ascension, no doubt about it.

“They were the better team and they won it fair and square,” he said in Edmonton while attending the Sather banner-raising festivities. “But, of course, that was the year they changed the schedule.

“When it had come up for a vote at the Board, I was the only one that voted against it,” he said. “After the next year [when the Flyers repeated by defeating the Flyers in five with a Game 3, 4, 5 sweep at home], the Board took another vote, and guess what, every one of those other teams that voted for it, voted against it.

“I’m just saying.”

So Gentleman Jim Rutherford, one of the sport’s good guys, let AHL coach John Hynes get away to the Devils in order to keep Mike Johnston behind the Pittsburgh bench for two more months?

And now that BFF Mike Sullivan has been hired to succeed Johnston, does John Tortorella still think the Penguins are the whiniest franchise in the league?

Just asking.