Sports Illustrated reported early on Wednesday morning that the NHL will expand into Las Vegas and Seattle, return to Quebec City and add another franchise in Toronto. A Las Vegas team had been rumored for over a year and was confirmed hours before any news was leaked regarding the three other franchises.
Las Vegas has never had an NHL team or a professional sports team in any of the four major sports leagues. The closest the city came to NHL action was when the New York Rangers and Los Angeles Kings played an outdoor game there in 1991. Gary Bettman, the NHL's commissioner had previously downplayed talks of a team there but now it's finalized and the team now only requires ownership.
Seattle has always been talked about in terms of the NHL. Many of hockey's biggest fans have advocated for such a franchise. Even Wayne Gretzky supported the idea a few months ago.
For Toronto this would mean two NHL franchises, which may seem odd at first but not when you consider how close the New Jersey Devils, New York Rangers and New York Islanders are to one another. Montreal has had two before and Toronto is one of the biggest markets in the NHL, they're the highest grossing team in the league.
Quebec City has had its taste of the NHL before when they had the Quebec Nordiques. Of course that changed when the team packed up and headed to Colorado where they won two Stanley Cups. With a new rink being completed, this couldn't be a better time for the city to try its hand in hockey again.
The expansion will reportedly take place in 2017. It would bring two teams to the East and West and would boost the number of teams in Canada to nine, something hockey players worldwide have always wanted to see. Seattle will also no doubt play a role in producing future hockey players like the three California have in recent years. This would ultimately bring the number of NHL teams to 34, an all-time high and would raise a great deal of money for the league as the combined expansion fees could reach upwards of $1.4 billion.