St. Louis Blues About To Head West More Often

The NHL is all but certain to expand to Las Vegas after it’s recommendation committee voted no the matter. That means an additional western trip for the St. Louis Blues.

The St. Louis Blues, along with some of their Central Division brethren like Chicago and Nashville, have some of the lengthier road rips in the league in terms of distance. They’re about to have to make one more.

Reports from several sources, including ESPN and NBC Sports, are saying the NHL’s relocation committee has voted in favor of expanding to Las Vegas. The particulars of this will be decided when the rest of the owners meed on June 22, just ahead of the NHL Draft.

The likelihood is that this Las Vegas franchise would join the league in 2017-18. It also means there will be an odd number of teams in the league for at least a season and likely more than that as the Black Knights (proposed name given Bill Foley’s ties to West Pointe) will be the 31st team.

Personally, I don’t understand the move other than to rush a team into the market. Maybe it’s the OCD in my brain, but 31 teams just seems odd. There aren’t any viable realignment scenarios that would make sense given Columbus latched itself onto Detroit’s teat when whining about a move to the Eastern Conference and those are the only viable markets to move west.

The flip side of that coin leaves no teams that could move east other than Chicago and I doubt the league would want to take away the Central Division rivalries, even though they milk the Original Six cow for all it is worth.

So, Las Vegas ends up joining the Pacific Division, giving them eight teams and leaving seven in the Central. Relocation might have made more sense, leaving out the $500 million the league is going to get for a relocation fee of course.

Relocating the Carolina Hurricanes, or another struggling Eastern team, would have kept the league at 30 and would have opened up the possibility of returning to a three division system. Whether that would be a pro or con is another matter.

On the plus side, the Blues are going to see a slice of that $500 million dollars. The amount seems unlikely to be evenly split among the teams with the league keeping nothing, but if in some fantasy land it was, the Blues would get almost $17 million.

Also on the positive side, the Blues might be able to make shorter trips instead of having to travel directly to California or western Canada. Short hops to Denver, then Vegas and then to the coast seem a little more palatable.

As for negatives, from the Blues perspective, it means an expansion draft. There are lots of rumors that the league may change it’s expansion draft rules to favor the Vegas team and get them into contention faster than most new teams.

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We’ll be able to talk more about the specifics of that and who the Blues might leave available once this is all finalized. However, even with all the goaltenders in the league, the one worry right off the bat is the Blues losing one of their goaltenders before they are fully ready to implement the next phase of their plan in net (whoever that may be).

For my personal perspective, I’m rather ambivalent about the Las Vegas market overall. I don’t gamble, so the lure of taking a road trip isn’t there as much as it is for others. I just hope the league has done its due diligence in terms of the support this team is likely to find.

Being able to say you have 13,000 season tickets already sold for a 17,500 seat arena is great. Building and sustaining that fan base is something else. In a city with a hundred other things to do, are you going to be able to keep those butts in the seats?  Will you have close to a full building on a Wednesday in January?

Winnipeg has kept their attendance high, bless their hearts, despite having a rough go on the ice. However in non-traditional markets like Miami, which is quite similar to Vegas in terms of the availability of other interests, they can struggle to fill the building even when the team is good.

I believe the NHL is actually not in this for the money. If it was, then this discussion would have been over long ago – especially given that the fee has gone up to $500 million from the $80 million that Minnesota and Columbus paid.

However, I still don’t get the hurry into Vegas without another team to join. Perhaps it says something about how far behind markets like Seattle, Kansas City or Quebec City are.

Expansion drafts are always worrying, but St. Louis could come out of that fairly unscathed if chips fall right. West coast swings are part of the game, so one more city won’t be that much of a drain. It’s more of a hope that the league knows what it is doing.

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The expansion money is great up front, but if the league suffers for it later on it might not have been worth it. While the NHL has rebounded reasonably well from the last lockout, it still doesn’t do many favors to turn on a midweek game and see lots of empty seats on TV.

We’ll have more on this story when the league votes on the 22nd, especially since St. Louis knows how committee recommendations aren’t always followed by their fellow owners. How do you feel about hockey being played in Sin City though? Let us know on social media or in the comments.