Expansion?

[wild4life]

What are everyone's thoughts on it? Personally, I think it dilutes the talent pool league wide. Money-wise/growing the game's popularity, I'm all for it. That said, as far as the quality of play goes, I think it could stand to lose a couple teams, not expand.

[apod417]

I'm the opposite, I think it allows older yet still very talented players stay in the league longer. Look at last years free agency and even this years lots of guy that are going to retire or play else where before they have two. on the flip side young players are developing faster and with a larger NHL ready crop with each and every draft year.

That said....when do you stop? how many teams before you really need to quit and rethink things.

I think Vegas will thrive, I also think the Coyotes will be fine now that they have some talent on the books.....Huricanes need to be relocated to Quebec.....Florida I guess we will see. I'm ok with 32 teams, but that's my limit would like to see the west even back up to 16 teams.

[30ranfordfan]

I am in the slim, slim, slim minority. I'm for expansion. Two more teams to get to 32? Sure, do that. Should have happened years ago.

Assuming you've got the locations (cities, arenas) and interested owners.....

I'd go for 2 more waves of 4 teams after that.... getting to 40 total.

Crazy? Maybe. The schedule would be easy though:

9 teams in your own division, play twice @ home and on the road (36 Game)
10 teams in the other division, same conference: home & road, once each (20 Games)
20 teams in the other conference: One game per year. If you're the Metro division (for example) you would go to the Pacific division, and have the Central division come to you. It would alternate year-to-year. (20 Games total).

That's a regular season schedule of 76 games (-6) but I'd also add another round of playoffs (first round is a best of 5) with 8 out of 10 teams in each division making the playoffs. Have the divisions wear each other down from 8, to 4, to 2, to 1 (that's 3 rounds) then conference finals, then SCF final.


Where would I stick the teams? I'll assume that Vegas & Quebec get Expansion teams to bring it to 32. After that?? We need to Western based cities to bring in Geographical Parody: Seattle & Kansas City. The remaining 6 would need to be an even East / West split.... I'd lean towards:

Atlanta (for a 3rd time)
Hartford (bring 'em back)
Another team in Toronto

Houston
OKC
Milwaukee

The other one in the maybe pile would be Cleveland.... but I like ATL / HAR / TOR better, and it's not western enough to come in over HOU, OKC, MIL.




I don't buy that there isn't enough talent to keep the league going. Yeah, you don't want to bring in all these teams at once (2, then 4 years later to 4, then 4 years later do 4 more) but there are plenty of skilled players not in the NHL. I never bought into the idea that expansion watered things down. Coaching got better, systems got better, and it became harder to score.

[Devlin]

not for expansion. Agree it water downs the talent. I'd rather see some
franchises relocate. Take your pick. It's a shame that Quebec does not have a team.
after that maybe
Hartford (B's not for that)
Las Vegas
Seattle

[maradona]

I used to be against expansion on the grounds of dilution, like so many others, but these days I've changed my mind. I've come to think that hockey, as a game, has evolved greatly over the past couple of decades and I believe the diluting effect of having talented players spread more thinly between teams is more than offset by an increased number of players and teams competing for being the best.