It would be stupid to push out a WHL just for a AHL team.
Why? I'm assuming you have a bias toward the WHL and see it as "better" hockey than the ECHL, but it you have an actual reason I'd love to hear it.
The alignment for AHL already is made up and it works with a Boise ID team. The central division teams are mostly central related teams.
That's true, but it also works for a team in about 7 other states, including a few that are a lot closer to the other pacific division teams. Also, this is the first time in recent memory that the AHL has had divisions with such nice geographic alignment. They've had some pretty weird alignments in the past, so it wouldn't be a stretch to go back to an unbalanced setup, if that is what best serves the NHL. That is the driving force in what happens with the AHL after all.
There is a very large gap in the pacific northwest with no AHL team.
So what? The AHL doesn't have a TV contract, or any other reason to spread their teams out over a larger footprint, except if it serves an NHL teams desire to have their team close. Boise doesn't really do that. What Boise has is an arena, and a hockey fan base. While those are obviously necessary items for an AHL team, there are other cities that have that, plus other advantages.
Colorado just promoted their ECHL to a AHL team.
Yes, Colorado just kicked the ECHL Eagles out of their building, forcing the owners to fold that franchise, and replaced them with an AHL team. ;-)
royals: you're forgetting, what's the bylaw in the AHL, ....
I have not forgotten that. I made no suggestion that there would be an unaffiliated AHL team.
the era of NHL Teams buying their affiliates at the AHL Level has ended.... with the creation of the Pacific and Colorado's contract....
I don't know where you got that idea. While NHL teams won't be buying AHL teams at the same pace as the last few years, mainly because the own most of them now, I don't see any evidence that says a future Seattle team, or some other current team, won't decide to buy an existing team, or an expansion team.
there's not an alignment needed to compensate as you put it, now, that San Antonio and Texas aka Cedar Park/Austin WERE realigned, finally, out of the Pacific....
No, there is no reason to realign currently. However, if Seattle decides they want to go with the Vancouver/Utica model and locate their team in a city near a current cluster of AHL teams, then the AHL will accommodate them with a re-alignment to compensate for that imbalance. I'm sure they don't want to, but in the end they will not force an NHL team to put their affiliate somewhere they don't want it just to have a nice geographic alignment.
St. Louis and Vegas didn't share a team this year.... and answer me this, why did the Blues assign G Jordan Binnington to Providence on a loan, mind you... so the idea of the Blues sharing a team, the Blues were free to make any deal they wanted to.
OK, I stand corrected. Vegas was affiliated with Chicago, and the Blues didn't have an affiliation. They were the ones who spread their players out over more than one team. The point is the same, in the first year of Seattle's existence there may well be a team (either Seattle of whoever loses in "musical affiliation swap") who shares an AHL team with someone else, or splits their players among more than one team. Seattle might not have their affiliation settled in their first year, or if they do, it might result in someone else having a year with no primary affiliate.