Expansion Draft Rules But No Expansion?

Something that I missed the other day in the midst of everything else going on was the NHL and NHLPA coming to an agreement on the format for an expansion draft.  Keep in mind, the NHL hasn't formally announced any expansion.  But if they're devising rules regarding how an expansion draft would go, you'd have to think it's pretty likely.  We're probably looking at when rather than if the NHL expands.

Las Vegas and Quebec City have been the two cities linked to possible NHL expansion ever since the topic was broached.  And the NHL has done nothing to dispel those rumors.  In fact, if anything, the league has added fuel to the fire with the expansion talk.

It's been three years since the NHL completed the Winnipeg realignment and went from six divisions to four.  More significantly, the 30 teams were divided into two divisions of eight and two of seven, with both of the seven-team divisions in the Western Conference.  The theory goes that the Western Conference was left two teams short intentionally so that it would be easier to simply insert two expansion teams without having to do any additional realignment.

Now, they don't need me to tell them it's not that simple.  Las Vegas does nicely fit into the Pacific Division with the California teams and Arizona (as well as the three in Western Canada).  But Quebec City would be a 17th team in the Eastern time zone.  The 16/14 thing doesn't work, so why would 17/15?  And you're not going to put a new team in Quebec City and not have them share a division with Montreal, so somebody from the Atlantic would have to move.

Detroit, of course, would be the logical choice, but you know they'd put up a stink about it.  The whole reason the conferences are uneven in the first place is because the Red Wings kept complaining about being in the Western Conference.  Well Red Wings, you're the furthest west of all the teams in the Eastern time zone, and your biggest rival is the Chicago Blackhawks, who play in the Central Division (in the Western Conference).  Or, worst case, you ship Columbus back to the West.

I say if you want Quebec City, you tell the Red Wings to suck it up and go back to the Central, where they'll play Chicago all the time.  But if the NHL doesn't want to do that, I'd suggest finding a city other than Quebec, which I agree would be the best choice of potential markets.  They'd need a city in the west to go with Las Vegas.  May I suggest either Seattle or Kansas City, then?

Regardless of where the teams are, it sure seems like the NHL will have 32 of them sooner rather than later.  Especially with how specific the expansion draft rules are.  No team would lose more than two players, and no more than one to each new team.  Teams would be able to protect seven forwards, three defenseman and a goalie or eight skaters regardless of position.  (If I was an existing NHL team, I'd definitely take the protect 11 option.)  They've even put in provisions for players that have no-movement or no-trade clauses. 

The NHL has said that there are still "hundreds" of details to go over before expansion becomes a reality.  But they also stressed that coming to an agreement with the union about how a draft would be handled was an important first step.  They couldn't make a recommendation about expansion before they had one.  Now that they do, you can expect those discussions to pick up and that recommendation to come.

While the NHL insists that "no final decision has been made," they've told the owners to be ready to vote on expansion for 2017-18 at the NHL Draft in June.  But the writing is certainly on the wall, now more-so than ever.  NHL expansion isn't just some passing idea.  We're going to see two new hockey teams.  If not in 2017-18, in 2018-19.