Earlier this summer, we’ve explored the topic of NHL expansion. In particular, we focused on a potential second Texas-based team moving into the league somewhere around 2030.
As it stands, there’s nothing firm. All we know is that the potential ownership group looking into the expansion club is evaluating whether Houston or Austin is the best option for the new team.
That said, there’s a “new” old team that could be coming: The Arizona Coyotes.
I’ve mentioned in the past that the NHL technically has 33 teams. The likely Houston franchise would be the 34th.
Let’s get into a bit of some background info. When the Coyotes moved to Utah, the Coyotes’ owner, Alex Meruelo, retained all the rights to the intellectual property pertaining to the Coyotes franchise. However, Meruelo has since relinquished the rights back to the NHL.
Hence, the NHL technically owns the Coyotes and could release the branding to any other prospective ownership group looking to reinstate a franchise in Arizona.
So, if the league reactivates the Coyotes and brings in another team in Texas, that would be two Central Division clubs.
There’s no way the NHL would have eight teams in three divisions and ten in the Central. While that’s not inherently bad, it would create a nasty scheduling issue.
That’s why the answer is realignment. One of the realignment proposals is to move the Nashville Predators to the Eastern Conference. Nashville is in the Central Time Zone. As such, where would the Preds play? In the Atlantic? There’s no way Nashville would go to the Metro. If anything, Nashville would have been just fine in the old Southeast Division.
The same argument could be made for Minnesota, Dallas, St. Louis, Winnipeg, Utah, and Chicago.
But what about Colorado? Would it make sense to move Colorado, which is currently in the Mountain Daylight Time zone, to the Pacific Division?
How would such a move work out?
Avalanche would actually do well in the Pacific Division
Moving the Avalanche to the Pacific Division could be a benefit to the team. The Pacific isn’t nearly as strong as the Central is at the moment. Consequently, the Avs could dominate a division that doesn’t have a clear-cut powerhouse at the moment.
Yes, the Vegas Golden Knights came out of the Pacific and beat the Avs in the Western Conference Final. But that’s only because Vegas had an easier path out of its division than Colorado did.
Incidentally, the Golden Knights didn’t run into the Edmonton Oilers in the playoffs last spring. Had Vegas run into Edmonton in the second round, who knows if the Western Conference Final would have featured Vegas.
Overall, the Avalanche would certainly benefit from playing fewer games against Dallas, Minnesota, St. Louis, and Utah. The Avs could get some extra brownie points from playing clubs like Seattle, Calgary, Vancouver, and Los Angeles. That situation could make life just a bit easier for the Avalanche moving forward.
One last thing. If there were another team that could be moved out of the Central, it would be Winnipeg. Back in the day, the first incarnation of the Jets played out of the defunct Smythe Division, which featured the Oilers, Canucks, Flames, and Kings. The Sharks briefly joined the division before it was disbanded in 1993.
But just looking at the map, it’s easier to see that Denver is far more to the west than Winnipeg is. So, who knows if there might be talk of Colorado getting an unexpected boost down the line.
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