- Sean Fitz-Gerald of the National Post: Gary Bettman on expansion.
“There’s no effort crying out for immediate expansion,” he told reporters. “But we are getting expressions of interest.”
“We would have to decide that we’re ready to expand,” he said. “And particularly, as I mentioned before, eastern expansion, at this point, would probably have more issues to deal with than a western expansion simply because we’re already out of balance and I’m not sure that anybody would want to see that get worse.”
Bettman has “heard” from interested groups in Quebec City, as well as from Kansas City, Seattle and Las Vegas. They are listening, but they are not in a formal expansion process.
“What you look at is: market, arena and ownership — ownership probably being the most important,” he said. “And then you decide whether or not you think it’s time to add another club … or two … or three, or however many.”
Bettman noted that “even if” they were looking at it, it would take two or three years for the team to start playing.
“I’m not casting it in stone, because I haven’t given it enough thought,” he said. “Which tells you how far along we are in the process.”
- David Pagnotta: “To my Quebec City friends: Seeing lots of msgs about my report from last week & some confusion about it. To be clear: It’s not done. I believe it’s happening. Based on everything I’ve been told, there’s no doubt in my mind it’s eventually happening. But NHL wants 2 teams added in West (LV & ideally SEA). Once that’s locked, QC is in. NHL doesn’t care about 16/17 conf imbalance. I don’t want to harp on the subject, bc there’s lots to be done still (especially w/ SEA). But things are slowing getting there.”
- David Pagnotta: “Bitch all you want about FLA, they’re not going anywhere.“