32 I think has to be the cutoff just for playoff purposes. That would put 50% of the teams in each season, and hockey has proven that teams need to be making the playoffs on a regular basis to sustain an acceptable level of fan support. 50% is pushing it IMO, and to expand further there would have to be some way to meet or exceed the 50% threshold and that would include some gimmicky play-in game, short series or "Bye Round" type of stuff that I don't think anyone should be excited about seeing in the NHL. Not to mention that it would extend the playoffs even further into the summer.
I'm both impressed and disheartened. For a long time, the joke among baseball/football first American non-hockey fan was the "everyone makes the playoffs" in hockey.
While obviously winning teams and playoff trips sell more tickets and make for better financial situations, I think this site tends to take a Sky Is Falling approach to finances of teams.
We've been talking about the few same teams being on their death beds, and a rotating list of teams that have gone from fine to death bed and back to fine, for decades now.
And the only one that move was the one evicted by their ownership group.
Now, the reason we all talk this way is obvious: For the most part, we want teams in QC and 1 or 2 more in Southern Ontario, and we really wouldn't mind seeing some of the newest franchises that are near the bottom of revenues get the axe to accomplish this.
But there's nothing "TERMINAL" about being near the bottom of revenues for prolonged periods of time. If every team were firing on all cylinders and selling out nightly, someone would still be 22-31 in revenues (And it would be the teams that don't have the same demand from people without tickets to raise prices to match teams 1-21).
For example, Buffalo and St. Louis are teams we rarely talk about being in a world of financial despair -- because of their longer histories and higher latitudes. They haven't been in the top half of revenue clubs since Forbes started their estimates for the NHL in the early 2000s.
Having 34 teams would mean one additional team missing the playoffs from what the Eastern Conference has now.
Adding markets like Vegas, Seattle, Houston and Quebec is a good thing. It grows the sport, it grows the TV contract -- another thing we all love to harp on is how the NHL has a USA TV deal that's 1/3rd the size of other Big Four Leagues... when it used to be 1/12th the size when the league had 21 teams.
The NHL is always going to have teams "taking turns" rebuilding. And some are going to be rebuilding more than others. The difference is that in baseball, they blame terrible ownership and GM decisions, and in hockey we blame the market.
Because there's not many baseball fans really ticked off at where teams are located.
They might go the MLB route i.e. a one game "wild card" playoff followed by a best of 5 first round series
That would be so awful.
