How many more franchises can the talent pool support?

[aqib]

We argue about what cities should/could support an NHL team,

Lets set aside how many markets could support a team. When the NBA added 6 teams in 7 years (Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota, Orlando, Toronto, and Vancouver) the league went through a down stretch as quality of play especially once the Big-3 Celtics and Showtime Lakers were dismantled. Eventually the talent pool caught up between the US population increased by 40% and the global growth of the game resulting better international players than before.

The NHL had its dead puck era when the added 5 teams in 3 years from 91-93 but then recovered as the Iron Curtain fell making it easier to get Russian players and more Americans took up the sport.

Since 2000 both the US and Canada have had 20% population increases. So could we go to 36 teams over the next decade and maintain quality of play?

Click to read more...

 

[CANADIENSFAN90]

Maybe 8 probably 5 I don’t see a bigger league than 40 teams

 

[WarriorofTime]

When the NBA added 6 teams in 7 years (Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota, Orlando, Toronto, and Vancouver) the league went through a down stretch as quality of play especially once the Big-3 Celtics and Showtime Lakers were dismantled.

Found the LeBron Stan anti-MJ propaganda.

 

[Yukon Joe]

I've never bought into this "talent pool is too thin" argument.

If you go to watch an AHL game - the talent level there is phenomenal. Yes, they're maybe a hair slower or less skilled than players in the NHL but by a very small degree. If the NHL expands to 40 teams you're not going to be getting players who hardly know how to skate.

 

[aqib]

Found the LeBron Stan anti-MJ propaganda.

This was not about MJ. Everyone around in the early/mid 90s knew the league was watered-down. This also includes the Bad Boy Pistons era. I love how JordanSexuals think everything is about MJ.

 

[WarriorofTime]

This was not about MJ. Everyone around in the early/mid 90s knew the league was watered-down. This also includes the Bad Boy Pistons era. I love how JordanSexuals think everything is about MJ.

lol didn’t take long to expose your agenda

“Everyone”

Yeah must be why that’s the time the nba exploded in popularity domestically and globally.

 

[aqib]

lol didn’t take long to expose your agenda

“Everyone”

Yeah must be why that’s the time the nba exploded in popularity domestically and globally.

haha "my agenda" was simply discussing how many teams the current hockey talent pool could support. You brought up Jordan. As far as "everyone" goes, even one of his teammates said the same thing: https://fadeawayworld.net/dennis-ro...beat-anybody-with-our-eyes-closed-pretty-much

 

[No Fun Shogun]

Having watered down rosters is good for star players, as it lets star players feast. It's really no coincidence that Gretzky thrived during an era of repeated expansions, after all.

There are more than enough fringe NHL players that could easily support quite a few more teams, 36, 38, 40, etc. But how many willing buyers are there with the asking price that the NHL has set for expansion fees? Maybe one or two more? And how many fanbases are willing to be left high and draw without a star draw?

 

[eojsmada]

I think it ultimately depends on how it effects the international leagues. If expanding the number of players by 50 (number of allowable contracts per organization) per team for, say, 4 teams, means that 200 players need to be added to the system, 25-50%+ of those might come from international leagues. So removing 50-100 top players from the SHL/Liga/KHL/ETC might not be good for those leagues as it would create environments where development could be hampered, the quality of play would be diminished, international competitions could be effected, and could lead to those leagues turning off the pipes to the NHL/AHL/CHL.

I think the NHL loves the way the current situation is with the international leagues and being able to use them as a secondary/tertiary way to develop its players. And to add a large amount of players, through expansion, could throw a wrench in the what is currently a decently working machine.

 

[PlayersLtd]

People need to consider that watered down talent may be a good thing. The right amount of disparity in talent makes the game more exciting.

An argument can be made that there is not enough chaos in the NHL and it is thus less exciting than previous eras.

Added to that talent alone doesn't win cups, team cohesion does. So if we say that there are a finite number of stars and are worried about this I would say this has less bearing on a team being competitive than people think.

 

[varsaku]

Having watered down rosters is good for star players, as it lets star players feast. It's really no coincidence that Gretzky thrived during an era of repeated expansions, after all.

There are more than enough fringe NHL players that could easily support quite a few more teams, 36, 38, 40, etc. But how many willing buyers are there with the asking price that the NHL has set for expansion fees? Maybe one or two more? And how many fanbases are willing to be left high and draw without a star draw?

We could then potentially see Gretzky's record being broken which would drive an insane amount of interest in the league.

I think it ultimately depends on how it effects the international leagues. If expanding the number of players by 50 (number of allowable contracts per organization) per team for, say, 4 teams, means that 200 players need to be added to the system, 25-50%+ of those might come from international leagues. So removing 50-100 top players from the SHL/Liga/KHL/ETC might not be good for those leagues as it would create environments where development could be hampered, the quality of play would be diminished, international competitions could be effected, and could lead to those leagues turning off the pipes to the NHL/AHL/CHL.

I think the NHL loves the way the current situation is with the international leagues and being able to use them as a secondary/tertiary way to develop its players. And to add a large amount of players, through expansion, could throw a wrench in the what is currently a decently working machine.

I think most of the spots will be filled by domestic players. The American talent pool has been growing rapidly as evident by their recent run of success at the world juniors. They used to never win at the world juniors and are now consistently contending for gold.

 

[eojsmada]

We could then potentially see Gretzky's record being broken which would drive an insane amount of interest in the league.


I think most of the spots will be filled by domestic players. The American talent pool has been growing rapidly as evident by their recent run of success at the world juniors. They used to never win at the world juniors and are now consistently contending for gold.

I already accounted for most spots being taken by NA players. Even at 25% internationals, it would still be devastating to international clubs.

 

[Flukeshot]

I think most of the spots will be filled by domestic players. The American talent pool has been growing rapidly as evident by their recent run of success at the world juniors. They used to never win at the world juniors and are now consistently contending for gold

I think this is an extremely important observation for the discussion. There is still likely to come a time when Americans have the highest percentage of players in the league.

I also agree there really is no bottom end. Look at Euro soccer. It's just endless with their tiered leagues. Fans will grow accustomed to it if done slowly enough.

 

[KevFu]

The player talent pool would definitely be fine. Talent is like a pyramid.

Easiest way to articulate it is to fire up NHL 24 and look at the overall ratings.

You add more teams and the 18th best guy on teams goes from a 75 to a 74. That's not really noticeable.


I think the bigger problem with expansion diluting talent is actually in the front office: Your execs, scouts, coaches, development. There's stats for players, but not for execs.

 

[hockeyguy0022]

Lot of players coming into the league younger, and exit earlier.

Realistically, if you get a full time shot at 22-24 and are out at 27-28, that's a short, but good career.

Guys used to be way older. You could also see the age scale going back up to that 34-35, and the way teams are built and formed would be different.

 

[Fidel Astro]

When the NBA added 6 teams in 7 years (Charlotte, Miami, Minnesota, Orlando, Toronto, and Vancouver)

This just broke my brain. I'm not an NBA guy at all, so I had no idea some of these teams were that recent.

Obviously I knew about Toronto and Vancouver because it was big news across Canada when they started out, but I guess I just assumed Miami, Orlando, Minnesota, etc. had been there for decades already prior to that.

You learn something new every day!

 

[Headshot77]

I'm not really concerned with the "talent pool". There are tons of great players that just need to be given a shot in a higher role and can succeed. Just look at the Golden Knights.

I think the league could settle into 36 teams fairly easily.

Metro - Atlanta
Atlantic - QC/Hamilton
Central - Houston/Austin
Pacific - SLC

Creates 4 even divisions of 9, and you'd have four Canadian franchises in each conference. I like the symmetry.

Then later in like 2050 you could go to 40 with:
Metro - Indianapolis?
Atlantic - Hamilton/QC
Central - Austin/Houston/KC
Pacific - Portland

 

[Flukeshot]

If you game this out long term, say 20-30 years from now, it would be imaginable that expansion could go to 40 teams and beyond with a shift in schedule/league structure and marketing.

The league could rebrand the AHL as something more akin to the NHL Tier 2. Allow independent franchises back into the AHL, no affiliation agreements required.

That then opens the door to have many more "NHL" franchises, In-Season tournaments that would include both the NHL and Tier 2/AHL. As well as the ever unpopular promotion/relegation model.

 

[KevFu]

If you game this out long term, say 20-30 years from now, it would be imaginable that expansion could go to 40 teams and beyond with a shift in schedule/league structure and marketing.

The league could rebrand the AHL as something more akin to the NHL Tier 2. Allow independent franchises back into the AHL, no affiliation agreements required.

That then opens the door to have many more "NHL" franchises, In-Season tournaments that would include both the NHL and Tier 2/AHL. As well as the ever unpopular promotion/relegation model.

That'd never happen. There's no way owners are open to lose their spot in the "top level" after buying in at top level prices. If MLS can't embrace PRO/REL when it's just part of soccer culture, there's no way sports without that culture are going to volunteer for something that can have catastrophic business ramifications.

But the reason you suggest it is because everyone thinks that 40 teams is just WAY TO BIG to operate as one cohesive league, and I've been making this point for a decade now WRT realignment and scheduling. We're past that point.


If the NHL suggested going to a 40-team league with eight divisions of five, and you play everyone Home and Away once, plus your division one extra game for 82 games, this board and most of Canada would straight up revolt. The idea of giving up division rivalries like TOR/MON/BOS that have been happening for 100 years in order to play San Diego, Portland, Houston and Salt Lake eight total times is just plain INSANE.

But we're kinda THERE now: The Islanders & Rangers played only 3 times last season! Toronto and Boston met 3 times in 2022.

During the 2020-21 season, you had 56 division games and it was kind of awesome.

The idea of operating like a 24-team league when you have 30-40 teams is a good idea. Go zipper format, so each conference has a W-C-E-E, and then play 5 of the 8 divisions, rotate 4-6 games a year vs the other 12 teams. It would make those visits from those other teams special events; it would maintain all the geographic rivalries, and create conference rivalries with some teams further away. It's the best for TV inventory.

 

[Flukeshot]

That'd never happen. There's no way owners are open to lose their spot in the "top level" after buying in at top level prices. If MLS can't embrace PRO/REL when it's just part of soccer culture, there's no way sports without that culture are going to volunteer for something that can have catastrophic business ramifications.

But the reason you suggest it is because everyone thinks that 40 teams is just WAY TO BIG to operate as one cohesive league, and I've been making this point for a decade now WRT realignment and scheduling. We're past that point.
...

I definitely agree PRO/REL is far fetched, I just don't think we should dismiss it as an option decades from now.

My angle is more that they can continue to expand the NHL "Branding". If you stop short of PRO/REL, there could still be a model where the AHL/NHL Tier 2 teams operate within the same framework and it could potentially increase AHL franchise value. Buy an independent "NHL-2" franchise and once a year you will get a chance to participate in a tournament where you play against NHL teams.

The same branding could be expanded to Europe. All without impacting the NHL-1 regular season and playoffs.

 

[KevFu]

I definitely agree PRO/REL is far fetched, I just don't think we should dismiss it as an option decades from now.

My angle is more that they can continue to expand the NHL "Branding". If you stop short of PRO/REL, there could still be a model where the AHL/NHL Tier 2 teams operate within the same framework and it could potentially increase AHL franchise value. Buy an independent "NHL-2" franchise and once a year you will get a chance to participate in a tournament where you play against NHL teams.

The same branding could be expanded to Europe. All without impacting the NHL-1 regular season and playoffs.

Ah, okay. Well, I definitely see your branding point as I've advocated for a decade or so that MLS should have launched MLS-2 when they had 12-16 teams, and expanded VIA PROMOTION, and done the whole thing again with MLS-3 and then it could have been like 20+ years before they actually relegated someone, AND you'd have cities lining up to get MLS-2 franchises early to try and play their way into MLS.

That being said, there's really no incentive to inject a second division between AHL/NHL now, and AHL is effectively "NHL-2" without the branding.

I personally think the NHL should have BOUGHT the entire AHL back when the western teams were buying their affiliates so they could move them out west. Then they could have some kind of synergy going, where you have the teams that need to extend the boundaries of their brands in nearby cities (I.E. - Buffalo & Rochester), but with bigger market clubs operating in markets that the NHL could consider for expansion.

And you have your affiliates be unorthodox in those top 4 to 8 markets that are expansion candidates.

You don't put Dallas' AHL team in Houston, you put like Nashville's there; so the Houston fans are rooting against Dallas' AHL team and when hockey fans in Houston are arguing about "which NHL team should we be rooting for: Dallas, who's closest, or Nashville, who's our parent club?" they realize the answer is: "Houston! We should just have our own NHL team!" That kind of thing.

 

[JohnBlutarski]

NHL could easily expand to a 40 team league. The talent pool is growing every year.
If I were in charge, I'd do what they did with Vegas and be the first big 4 league to go into the Austin market next.

Austin
Quebec - already has arena
Kansas City - already has arena
Houston - Massive population
Atlanta - third times the charm?
Salt Lake City - has arena and an owner that wants a team

after that draw 2 cities out of a hat.

4 divisions of 10 teams. top 20 teams make playoffs. Division winners get first round byes.

 

[KevFu]

I also think the question is pretty moot, because the one major thing they learned from the 1990s is that SUDDEN expansion is bad.

You can't just say "We want to grow the league to 40, here's eight new teams!" kinda like they did in the 1990s with nine new teams in nine seasons.

You want the new markets to assimilate. To have time being the only new team and have a schedule of 100% existing teams so the markets feel part of the league. You don't what what happened to CAR, FLA, TB, ATL, ARZ, ANA, SJS and DAL to happen... where over a quarter of their games were against fellow NEW teams and they felt like outsiders.

You also want the existing franchises to have the time to work through losing a player in the expansion draft and being displaced in the entry draft by new teams being added in.

It's easier to rebuild a team when you're picking #1 overall; and for some teams in the 1990s, it was pure luck on if their terrible team picked #1 and #23 overall, or #3 and #29, or #5 and #35.


So I say it's moot, because even if the NHL was EAGER to get to 40 as quickly as possible, that should still take them 24-32 years to get the 40th.

 

[Headshot77]

NHL could easily expand to a 40 team league. The talent pool is growing every year.
If I were in charge, I'd do what they did with Vegas and be the first big 4 league to go into the Austin market next.

Austin
Quebec - already has arena
Kansas City - already has arena
Houston - Massive population
Atlanta - third times the charm?
Salt Lake City - has arena and an owner that wants a team

after that draw 2 cities out of a hat.

4 divisions of 10 teams. top 20 teams make playoffs. Division winners get first round byes.

You know honestly, since Houston's arena is owned by people that seem disinterested in the NHL, Austin might be the value play for the NHL to get a second team into the state. Kinda like how they slid into Columbus since Cincinnati and Cleveland already were sort of saturated with sports. But IMO an Austin franchise means giving up on the idea of a Houston one simply due to proximity.

The more I think about it the more I'd rather have a team in Austin than Houston. If you look at this (admittedly ancient) article you see that the largest markets without major pro sports at the time of its writing were:

1. Ontario California (a big suburb of LA)
2. Vegas (which now has three sports teams)
3. *Austin, TX*
4. Virginia (where the Caps and Wizards are going to relocate to soon)
5-10. Cities too small to justify a team.

Austin is the final frontier as far as new cities that can add their first sports franchise and support it well. The NHL should capitalize and try to make a true hockey hotbed in Texas where hockey is #1 instead of Houston where it would be like, idk, #7? Behind their other three franchises and NCAA for sure.

Quote from Wikipedia: "As of the 2020 census, the Austin–Round Rock–Georgetown MSA is the 28th-largest metropolitan area in the United States, with a total population of 2,352,426."

That's enough to support a franchise. So optimally maybe you could get the NHL in a 100% brand new pro sports market and have their AHL affiliate 2.5 hours down the road in Houston.

 

[GhostofTommyBolin]

NHL could easily expand to a 40 team league. The talent pool is growing every year.
If I were in charge, I'd do what they did with Vegas and be the first big 4 league to go into the Austin market next.

Austin
Quebec - already has arena
Kansas City - already has arena
Houston - Massive population
Atlanta - third times the charm?
Salt Lake City - has arena and an owner that wants a team

after that draw 2 cities out of a hat.

4 divisions of 10 teams. top 20 teams make playoffs. Division winners get first round byes.

Kansas City has no desire to bring in an NHL team.