Sounds Like An NHL Expansion Team Is Vegas Bound, Baby!

It appears Las Vegas will finally have its first professional sports franchise, and it will reportedly come courtesy of the fine folks of the National Hockey League.

Although it sounds like a deal is yet to be completely finalized, and the league has made no official announcement with regards to yesterday’s vote on whether to expand to Las Vegas and/or Quebec for the 2017-18 season, sources with close knowledge of the NHL’s Executive Committee report that a positive recommendation will be made for professional hockey to come to Sin City two seasons from now.

The Sin Bin, a Vegas-centric hockey blog, was first to report on the huge expansion implications:

Our sources in Las Vegas with extensive knowledge of the organization and the expansion process have confirmed the Executive Committee formulated a positive recommendation for expansion to Las Vegas and the official announcement will come on June 22nd prior to the NHL Awards ceremony.

There has not yet been confirmation on division, expansion draft date, or any other details as previously reported by Francois Gagnon.

The announcement is currently scheduled to take place at a press conference in Las Vegas to be held before the Awards, not during. The league has had a habit of changing these types of events before, but at the moment that’s when Commissioner Bettman is expected, presumably with The Creator by his side, to say the magic words and grant Las Vegas its first major professional sports franchise.

The next step in the process is for Mr. Foley to sign the expansion contract and send it, plus $500 million, back to the league. At that point, the 30 owners will vote at the Board of Governors meeting to accept the expansion contract and expand the league to 31. Las Vegas will begin play in the 2017-18 season.

Deadspin reports that while Las Vegas sounds as close to a sure thing as there is without total confirmation, unfortunately, Quebec might have to wait a bit longer to see their Nordics franchise return as the seventh Canadian NHL team.

The nine-members committee, chaired by the Bruins’ Jeremy Jacobs, consists of owners from the Maple Leafs, Flames, Capitals, Blackhawks, Hurricanes, Wild, Lightning, and Ducks. The NHL has said they had three options on the table:

1. No expansion
2. Defer a decision to 2018
3. Expansion for 2017-18, with either one or two new teams

Quebec City seems like it’s not going to happen—the head of the bid, former Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, has hinted that the weak Canadian dollar might force the bid to wait.

As I previously noted when both cities filed their bids for expansion franchises last July, a name for Vegas’ first professional sports team hasn’t been settled on yet either, but there are some strong contenders:
There hasn’t been any hard indication given to the name of the Vegas team should their NHL expansion bid be successful, but the early house favorites are on the “Aces,” “Blackjacks,” and “Strippers.” Just kidding about that last one…kind of. ESPN’s Scott Burnside also reports that the Vegas filing – which has preemptively sold upwards of 13,000 season ticket packages – was done so under Black Knight Sports and Entertainment LLC, so “Black Knights” would be a plausible play too.

If/when hockey comes to town, it’s expected the team will play in the new T-Mobile Arena.