NHL GIVES NEW VEGAS TEAM A SHOT AT BEING A WINNER
Roundtable discusses hockey in the desert, lack of scoring and three points for win
GPALM BEACH, Fla. ary Bettman kept repeating himself. At least three times. “Please do not make more out of this than it is,” the NHL commissioner told a roomful of reporters that memorable day in Boca Raton two years ago at the December 2014 board of governors meetings. Easier said than done. After all, the commissioner had just dropped the bombshell that potential owner Bill Foley had been granted approval to gauge the interest of a franchise in Las Vegas by undertaking a season-ticket drive.
NHL shinny in Sin City? Could it possibly come to fruition?
Twenty-four months later, Foley’s dream has become a reality. The Vegas expansion team will begin play in the fall of 2017 in a state-ofthe-art arena just a slapshot away from the famed Strip.
As the NHL celebrates its centennial campaign, the prospect for the incoming Vegas franchise is among the most intriguing topics facing the league, joining other points of discussion such as a lack of goal scoring and the always interesting debate as to whether teams should be awarded three points for a regulation-time victory.
In order to offer some clarity and opinion from those who have their fingerprints on the pulse of the league, Postmedia approached four governors for some insight.
ZEISBERGER: Las Vegas is less than a year away from icing an NHL team. Will it work?
LOWE: I believe it’s going to do wonderfully. I think a lot of people are going to focus their vacation trips to Vegas. Besides having a large metropolitan area, they’ll get more tourists probably than Florida and New York get to games. That’s going to help out. The cap will make it interesting. There might be a surprise or two when it comes to available players because of cap complications for existing teams. That will be one part that might be difficult to anticipate.
ARMSTRONG: I think we’re very excited to have a new team come into our league. Obviously Vegas is a happening town. It’s an exciting place. It’s exciting to visit. They’re a great case study of putting a team in there and how it’s going to flourish. I’m a huge fan of (GM) George McPhee. I don’t think they could have picked a better guy to build a foundation for that franchise. I’m excited for a lot of reasons including the fact that one more team makes more jobs for everybody. I think they’d love to get a balanced schedule with a corresponding number of teams on each side. There’s a lot of positives there. And I know, just having been at a number of board of governors meetings, there’s been a lot of due diligence done by the league and the personnel within the league to get a great owner. And they kind of went on a field-of-dreams mantra — if they build it, they will come. Well, they built it. And the NHL did come.
DAVIDSON: When cities want to join the National Hockey League, I think they have to step up in terms of ownership and Vegas did. There’s no question Quebec City did the same thing. But from my point of view we need teams in the west because it’s 16-15 in favour of the east right now.
ZEISBERGER: How much work is being done preparing for next summer’s expansion draft?
NILL: When the rules first came out, we started doing our homework and we’ve kind of kept at it — a rough idea of who we might keep, who we won’t keep. Having said that, teams also know it can change on a week-to-week basis as players develop. Teams have a good idea who they might have to trade, who they might have to protect. But you know as the season goes on, between trades, injuries, things can change quite a bit.
DAVIDSON: Regarding the expansion draft, we’ve had two Vegas scouts at each of our past four games. We’re going to lose a good player. And I’m disappointed in that, especially with what we’ve gone through. You try to build depth up, you try to build your organization up. But I don’t set the rules. And I respect the fact that with the amount of money Vegas is paying to join the league, they’ll be able to set a base for their franchise so they won’t have to go years with losing 6-1, 7-1, 7-2. They’ll have a chance to fight the fight and I get that. It’s a good idea. The league has done its due diligence. And it’s more than the Strip. A lot of fans will come in to see their favourite teams play. It will be interesting but I see it working, I really do.
ARMSTRONG: We haven’t put a lot of (time) into the expansion draft yet. We’re worried about this year. When you look at the fact you can protect seven forwards, three defencemen and a goalie, I’m not sure you’re going to sabotage your season now because you might lose the 12th player on your roster. It is what it is. I think as you get closer to that date, you can get creative with the Vegas team as far as maybe having them acquire a player and sweeten the pot if they want to. Or acquire a player from another team and giving them an asset. But it’s not like we’re going to trade serviceable players who might help our team now because we might lose a guy in June.
ZEISBERGER: Coming out of the World Cup, goal scoring was up by a significant amount. But that trend has quickly reversed and now offence has dried up again, with the average being about five goals per game. Is this reason for concern? Are changes required, whether it be expediting measures to shrink goalie equipment, make nets bigger, penalize zone defences, etc.?
NILL: A 2-1 game can be better than a 5-4 game. I think the game has never been better, never been faster. And almost every game is exciting. I think that’s because every team has a chance to win. I think everyone knows whoever makes the playoffs has a chance to win. Every night’s a playoff game. There was one coach at the start of the season who was asked: When do you think you have to start getting ready for the playoffs? Well, the playoffs start on Day 1 of the regular season now. I think that’s great for the fans, great for the league. ARMSTRONG: One of my thoughts on why the scoring was up early was that a lot of the top coaches in our game were away for training camp. By the time they got back and got things the way they wanted defensively, it took a bit of time. But I’m not surprised it came down. It’s the coaching and because of the players who weren’t in the World Cup have now caught up competitively with the players who were.
LOWE: The thing for me isn’t goals. Oddly enough, the most exciting game in Oilers history might have been a 1-0 game. So the number of goals scored in a game doesn’t automatically translate into excitement or not. For me it’s always about scoring chances. You could have a goalie like Carey Price stand on his head. And that’s exciting. A thrilling save is part of the game. No question it’s more difficult to score. But because of that, it creates more skill to try to score. Wayne (Gretzky) and I were talking about this recently — the pace of the game, the speed, is so amazing. As long as the game allows for scoring chances, I’m more worried about obstruction and interference than I am about bigger nets.
DAVIDSON: This influx of young players who can do so much at full speed, they’re fast and great to watch. It’s fascinating. It started with that (North America) team at the World Cup. Now, as a former goalie, I think there are still some things that can be worked on. There’s a cheater on a catcher’s glove, for example. Why is that there? It doesn’t make sense. When I played, a handful of guys could shoot. Now they all can. You have to make sure the goalies are protected. And changes in equipment are difficult because they go all through hockey at every level, kids all the way through the NHL. It’s a battle but I think it’s getting better. I think goalies are well protected. There’s no fear to play goal anymore. I think there are some things you could work on — pants, shoulder pads, cheaters.
ZEISBERGER: There’s been an interesting debate about having the league consider a 3-2-1 points structure which rewards teams with three points for a regulation win, two points for an overtime/ shootout win and one point for an overtime/shootout loss. Thoughts?
NILL: That was discussed two, three, four years ago. And at that time, we sat down and went through another league that had used it. There wasn’t as much difference as you might think there was. We put in those point systems for every team. What they would have made. And it didn’t move much. And it didn’t separate things as much as you think. I just don’t think the 3-21 would make that much difference in the standings.
ARMSTRONG: If there is an appetite for it, I’d like to see it done at a different level and you could judge it. Maybe the East Coast league or the AHL to see how it works, see what trends there are. But I’m not in favour of starting it in the NHL.