Both divisions in the East have 8 teams. The two Western divisions have 7 teams each.
I have seen speculation about potential teams in Las Vegas and Seattle. How well would this work out? I know the Coyotes have been a disaster for the past few years, and the league had to buy them out of bankruptcy. Would another team in the desert suffer the same way?
The NHL should not expand, but of course it will. I have no idea what is up with the love affair with Las Vegas. You don’t want to build a team based on the hope that visiting fans will make up a large portion of the attendance. Plus, so many people that moved to Las Vegas still follow their old teams.
The owners see expansion fees as a cash cow that they can’t keep their hands off. Sure, they’ll expand. They don’t give two shits about the conference balance, they’d just love to charge someone the entry fee.
What they should do is contract. We don’t need Anaheim, Florida, Tampa, Carolina, Nashville, Dallas, or Phoenix. Give a team back to Quebec. Grand Rapids would be a better NHL site than Las Vegas. Seattle might be worth a shot. But not Las Vegas.
Well, there’s one reason in favor of a Vegas team; a number of other teams have a fan base there to attend the team’s games in Vegas.
However, there’s another problem; it’s up to Gery Bettman as to whether or not betting on NHL games involving the Vegas team (or any game held in Vegas, including the All-Star Game) would be allowed. How much interest would there be in a Vegas team if you couldn’t bet on it, or on a team playing a game there? There is already one casino (Silverton, I think) that isn’t allowed to take any NHL-based bets because one of its owners is also a part owner of an NHL team.
They should *contract *to balance the conferences, as well as partially correct the dilution of talent in the league.
But the owners are in the habit of cashing in on expansion fees, so it won’t happen.
Almost certainly true, and I expect we’ll see another team or two in this decade because of it.
Disagree with the contraction part of this, on the other hand. Maybe you look at relocating Florida, Carolina, or Arizona, because the attendance is by far the worst and they’re losing tons of money (well, Arizona looks okay because they’re fleecing the taxpayers).
Greater Toronto is a slam dunk for one expansion/relocate. Quebec probably works, but there’s a lower margin for error with such a small metro area, even a Canadian-hockey-crazed one. Winnipeg is your best-case scenario, which is not a bad thing, but it’s not an automatic win either. There’s an argument that a second team in Montreal or Vancouver might work out better - though you’d almost certainly see a Seattle team before a second in Vancouver.
Vegas is interesting because the stadium is already being built, and because there’s some advantage to being the first pro sports team in town, but there are a lot of challenges. It really seems like Vegas should be a NBA city, at least IMO. Better fit and a league in a better position to take that risk.
Not sure if you have them in mind but the Jets ‘returned’ to Winnipeg two or three seasons ago.