I agree with what other posters have written here. There is no franchise which is at such risk right now that any owner would need to sell at a discounted price. No owner has so many of his eggs in the NHL basket that it would come to that for him (exception might be Ottawa - Melnyk has issues, for sure).
Since it not a financial need, no one will sell, because that would lower the franchise values of all of the teams. The right financial play here is to wait COVID out and see how things develop in the next couple of years.
Long term?? Well, let's ask the obvious question: What is the worst possible outcome of this virus event?
Answer: There aren't enough people willing to risk sitting in an arena with 18,000 other people for a long time. That's the worst. Post-virus, the players will want to play, the owners will want them to play, and the cities will want some form of entertainment happening. People in general, even if they don't want to attend, will still be interested in watching at home - perhaps more so than now.
The effect of that will be, simply, that the league in toto will have less revenue, because much of revenue is ticket sales. So, the cap decreases. Now, let's compare franchises.....If the local ticket sales and local revenue decreases as a percentage of league wide revenue, the teams most hurt financially are the ones who are doing the best right now. In such a scenario, losses for places like AZ and FL actually become more manageable (this ignores the remainder of the owner's portfolio, of course.)
So, conclusion, even long term, it isn't very likely that any franchise has to fold. And, strangely enough, if you consider a post-COVID world, with a new normal driven by fear of viruses and the next pandemic, in which arena seating has much more empty space, it's actually possible that the NHL would emerge healthier, in the sense that the finances of the league would be much more evenly spread between Team 1 and Team 32.
If there is an issue in Ottawa - Melnyk doesn't have a lot of cash, and his biggest asset is the Sens and the arena - that might be the one place where something would need to happen if he can't continue. Based on prior moves, it seems highly likely that what would happen is that the NHL would make every effort to find a buyer to keep the team local. The wise move is never to move quickly..... If that can't happen (and we are deep in the realm of conjecture here.....) and the team must relocate, then Quebec might be an option (it's a lateral move, basically and no one in the states would think poor of the league for that kind of move)...
But who knows.
As for AZ, I agree completely that the franchise has been moving toward a better situation for a couple of years. Since they don't have any responsibility toward the arena, their only losses while this COVID situation continues are going to be payroll, and they may come out better than they went in, actually.
