PrimeNumber

I think a team could do very well in Saskatoon. There is more than enough corporate support with Mosaic, Yara, Brandt, Sasktel, Potash Corp, etc. I'd be tempted to by season tickets. A two hour trip there and back wouldn't hurt. The St. Louis blues almost moved to saskatoon in the 80's. It's to bad it didn't happen to Saskatoon Blues has a nice ring to it, especilly given the cities music history, particularly the Blues and Jazz Festivals

There is absolutely no possible way the oilers can get Eichel. McDavid yes but they won't touch Eichel unless they can trade up to at least 2nd in the draft. I guarantee you no one is passing on Eichel as the 2nd overall pick. He will absolutely end up in either Buffalo or Arizona.

YAK took a huge step forward towards the end of the season 21 points in his last 31 games. An actual smart move by the Oilers to bridge him on a pretty good contract, if they can improve on their goaltending and find a solid defensive quarterback by next season they may be able to improve to being a bubble team.

I prefer this matchup to any possible matchup we had. It will be a hard fought battle, call me a little biased but I think Anaheim is going to have a tough time taking on this Jets team over the course of at least 8 days. We may not be overly gifted but we have a punishing fore and backcheck. I don't know if Anaheim has enough to keep up. Mind you we've been in Playoff mode for about a month or more now, I'm not sure if we have another gear after this, Anaheim has been coasting a bit. If they turn it on they may be able to match us. It's a hard call so I'm calling it as I see it for now.

Here's my first round predictions; Minny over St. Louis in 6 Chicago over Nashville in 6 Calgary over Van in 7 Winnipeg over Anaheim in 6 Ottawa over Montreal in 6 Tampa over Detroit in 5 NYR over Pittsburgh in 4 Washington over NYI in 5 Should be a great playoffs definitely one of the more exciting first rounds in the last few years. I'm even more happy that Boston and LA are out.

Vegas will fizzle in due time just like Arizona... Its sad when more fans of other teams are at your home games

You can poach coach's it just costs you draft picks now.

Finally someone I can agree with.

Hahahaha that was great.

Well its been a long time coming but the Winnipeg Whiteout is back. Hopefully I can make it to Winnipeg for a game.

Quebec isn't to small. Its been proven that an NHL franchise needs much less metropolitan population in Canadian cities than American cities to thrive. There has been a few people and companies interested, the most recent I heard of was Quebecor. Bettman has already said no teams will ever relocate to other conferences so if Florida goes up for sale its staying on the eastern side of North America. LV and Seattle will be expansions or the Coyotes and due to how much the NHL has investes in keeping the Coyotes in Arizona I don't see them relocating any time soon. LV has an arena in the works, successful ticket drive and is more or less going to happen. The question is will Bettman wait until Seattle gets their crap together or will he just have a one off expansion and then if Seattle is ready another one off expansion. Either way Bettman has made it pretty clear he doesn't want to mess with the conferences, he's alright with toying with the divisions though. Chances are after the NHL hits 32 teams we will see a division shake-up.

This is true. Hopefully Florida will give us one more.

There's still a large amount of bad. Too much in my opinion. The only reason he is still there is because he has done a great job of lining the pockets of some of the more wealthy owners in the league. That's his only real success. But like I said any comissioner worth their high salary should be able to not only grow the league, but keep labour peace as well as expand into reliable and stable markets all while maintaining and enforcing player safety. I'm sorry but I don't think Bettman has accomplished this and in my opinion is a bad commissioner. Anyways, how bout them Jets? I wonder if there is a way we can get buff suspended for the playoffs if we make it?

Double post

Yes because everyone prefers money over potential brain damage. I'm sure Derek Boogaard would tell you he wouldn't take any of it back because he loved the money.... Seriously..

Yeah because the NHL isn't getting sued for negligence by former players. Money isn't everything.

You do know Atlanta was given a second franchise under Bettman right? Where do you think Winnipeg 2.0 came from?

I really hope management realizes that the team really does perform better without him. We should try and get some defensive futures for him while the iron is hot.

https://mobile.twitter.com/myregularface/status/585635374216642560 Here's a link to the check. Laptop is fried so have to post from my phone not entirely to sure how to link it in.

He has done good things, I will agree with that. But for every good thing there are bad things. There's a reason why he is booed in every single arena he visits. Something not shared by any of the other 3 major sport comissioners in North America. He doesn't even hand out trophies sometimes because of the booing. Everyone seems to stick up for him around here but go to literally any major hockey forum and the decision is pretty unanimous. There are much better things he could have done, for the league but more importantly the fans and obviously for the players.

Not even once but twice.

Backes just layed a cross check to the back of Stuarts neck. We will see what happens now... Not as bad as buffs, but more or less the same motion.

Because Atlanta doesn't count?

Anyone worth their weight as a comissioner should have been able to bring about these changes without 2 and a half lost seasons. There's a very real possibility that Arizona and Florida could lose their franchises, unless a crosby-esque savior comes along. Many american teams are in financial trouble and Bettmans southern expansion strategy could look like a complete flop in a few more years. He already lost Atlanta back to Winnipeg, begrudgingly. And he may lose Florida to Quebec. Las Vegas may look like an attractive option but if the novelty wears off, it may look like another failed Bettman experiment.

Please show me the evidence that the NHL financially supported Calgary and Vancouver.