NHL Rumors: Expansion Will Be Decided By the Arizona Coyotes
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The saga of the Arizona Coyotes could be winding down. Once and for all. There is pressure being put on the Coyotes from the NHL to get a new building for the team. If they do not get one, the NHL may be forced to relocate the team to another city.

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According to Craig Morgan of Phoenix Sports, the Coyotes are zeroing in on a new site for their new building. Morgan writes they are looking at a piece of land northeast of Phoenix, adjacent to Scottsdale.

As NHLRumors.com reported the NHL is hopeful the Coyotes can announce a deal for a new building sometime this season. Maybe even have shovels in the ground. It is not ideal to have one of your franchises playing in a college facility.

Again the NHL does not want to relocate franchises before exhausting all options. But things are getting close to closing time for the Coyotes in Arizona.

Now throw in the little caveat of expansion coming out of the Board of Governors meetings this past week and the clock is ticking on the Coyotes. And while the NHL is not been actively looking to expand they are always listening. Some of the places the NHL may expand are Houston, Salt Lake City, Kansas City, and Atlanta.

However, before the NHL potentially expands past 32 teams, the situation involving the Coyotes in the desert has to be fixed first as David Pagnotta stated on Sirius XM NHL Network Radio this past week.

Pagnotta: “Yeah, and Luke made a great point, we need to find out what the heck’s going on with Coyotes. So once we figure out what’s going on with the Coyotes, I mean they’re either gonna stay or they’re gonna get a building in Mesa or they’re gonna go downtown, they really don’t too. I mean, that’s worst case. They don’t want to do that because the fan base is not really downtown. But you figure that out before you move them to Salt Lake City and then you try to figure out expansion there.

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There’s a reason why the League has been pushing so hard to stay in that market. You look at their television ratings, you look at the marketplace. Excuse me, the TV ratings of that market, the size of that market, you want to be there but you need to have the right plan in place they are trying to figure that out.

Once the Coyotes are figured out, then that’ll determine, alright, who’s next in line. Is it if they say Salt Lake, is it Atlanta? For the third time? We’re just on the outskirts of Atlanta? Is it Houston? Is it going to be San Diego? Is it Portland? Is it so on and so on. There are other options that are out there that people want. Even Kansas City is still kind of fluttering in the background here with their owners, who own the Chiefs. They’re still interested in an NHL franchise.

So the NHL has options. But that doesn’t mean they have to pounce on those options right away.”