Vegas purchases AHL San Antonio
- Thread starter Barclay Donaldson
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Centrum Hockey
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Armstrong statement on purchase of San Antonio Rampage They don’t mention the wolves directly this could get interesting given how the wolves/blues relationship ended.
Barclay Donaldson
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They certainly didn't end on good terms. Then again, St. Louis might not have much of a choice. There are not many teams available to buy, as this recent activity has shown.
Agalloch
EliteProspects
Centrum Hockey
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The Blues don’t want to own a AHL team.
The eagle’s play the same number of games as the ca teams. Its the ahl it wouldn't be surprising if the pacific division Is 10+ teams.
Barclay Donaldson
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Absolutely zero chance.
Rockford is not going to sell to St. Louis. The city owns the team, and the city has been incredibly vocal about how the team economically invigorates the area around the rink. They're clearly not for sale, or else Vegas would have knocked that door down.
The ownership, which is the city and isn't some businessman with a price, wouldn't in their right mind sell off an asset like the IceHogs when they're doing well as the Blackhawks affiliate to St. Louis, Chicago's biggest rival...
GindyDraws
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hurricanesfan123
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Agalloch
EliteProspects
So in this case , STL will have no choice to return to the Chicago Wolves.
Centrum Hockey
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The CA teams+Colorado,Tucson,Vegas and probably eventually Vancouver’s affiliate all play 68 games.If the AHL Eventually realign’s they will probably spilt the division in two but keep the teams together. There was a point when there was so many AHL teams in New England that Worcester and Manchester where in a separate division from Springfield/Hartford.
GindyDraws
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The Texas Stars are clearly the biggest losers out of this deal. At the beginning of the previous decade, they had San Antonio and Houston as regional opponents, providing a nice cushion for travel and rivalries for fans, but now, they are an island amongst themselves. It's not as bad as Abbotsford, but they are in the same awkward position Manitoba and Charlotte have to deal with where their nearest opponents are more than 300 miles away.
bleedblue1223
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Won't we just be stuck with them? I don't see Blues ownership purchasing a team, so I guess the only other hope is that another affiliation ends and we affiliate with that club, but do any of those situations even exist?
Unless they can come to an agreement with another NHL team that doesn't own their AHL team to exchange AHL affiliates.
5 divisions doesn't make sense either. Like the NHL putting coyotes in central after Seattle joins. Sometimes there isn't an idea solution to league's alignment.
I think the Pacific will run 8 team next season with the Midwest having 7. Once Palm Springs enters in 2021, Colorado moves to the Midwest the same time Arizona moves divisions.
We'll probably hear something about that at the AHL's next board of govenor's meeting.
Barclay Donaldson
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Very likely the case. Vegas scrambling around looking to buy an AHL franchise Vegas showed just how limited/nonexistent the options are.
Especially for St. Louis. They tried convincing Kansas City's and Indianapolis' ECHL owners to upgrade to the AHL on their own dime and team up with them ala Colorado Eagles and they both told them to eat dirt. St. Louis has been looking for a relationship that requires less effort than buying and owning the team like the teams in the Pacific Division and more control than the Wolves would offer. But, like Vegas showed, alternative options are nonexistent.
That would be kinda hard since the rule iirc is 1 AHL club per NHL team. 33 AHL clubs with one not having any ties to a NHL club wouldn't make sense.
Barclay Donaldson
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This was back in 2017, before Seattle bought the 32nd AHL franchise. It was in the immediate aftermath of them leaving the Wolves. Just goes to show how things NHL teams have a lot of power, but it does have its limits when there is no leverage. Quite a few interesting reads about it at the time:
Missouri Mavericks Deny Reports on AHL and Kansas City - Arena Digest
Blue Notes: Reaves moving to third line, at least to start
Report: Blues AHL affiliation to move to Kansas City
Didn't Norfolk threaten to do that and was met with "That's fine, we just won't schedule you in any games?"
BigMac1212
I feel...alone.
Barclay Donaldson
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That was before there team affiliations were as set as they were now. Teams were sharing affiliations regularly, they changed affiliates regularly every few years. Nofolk realistically could have been left out in the cold.
Affiliations now are almost entirely set in stone. Half the league is directly owned by their parent club, and all but three or four of the rest have such a close relationship that they essentially have the same relationship as the other half of the league. With the way the system is now, no one in their right mind would share their AHL affiliate. The new system is about prospect development, and maximizing the time the kids are playing on the farm is why the AHL underwent that shift. St. Louis wouldn't find a partner to the dance nowadays. No one is going to let them budge in and take away valuable time from their own prospects and their own marketing. St. Louis is going to be left in the cold unless they can find a taker, which as Vegas shown is incredibly unlikely.
Still going to be in the pacific. Colorado Eagles will probably move over to central since they are the furthest eastern team.
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