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Bettman: NHL closing in on expansion decision
- Updated: May 30, 2016
7:55 PM ET
PITTSBURGH — The NHL is nearing an expansion decision, commissioner Gary Bettman announced Monday before Game 1 of the Stanley Cup finals.
“I’m not going to handicap what is going to happen,” Bettman said during his state of the union news conference. “But when the board (the NHL Board of Governors) meets in Las Vegas on June 22, I am fairly certain we will know more than we do today.”
Before that, the NHL’s executive committee of owners, a smaller more powerful group, will finally provide its recommendation within the next two weeks ahead of the full Board of Governors meeting.
“We’ll all know more after the executive committee makes a recommendation,” said Bettman. “I have no doubt that recommendation will probably get leaked in advance of the board meeting. There will be plenty of time to speculate.”
Bettman stressed the same options remain on the table: no expansion at all; expansion deferred; or expansion to Las Vegas and/or Quebec City.
Expansion requires a two-thirds majority vote from the 30 owners.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly when asked about the possibility of the NFL’s Oakland Raiders moving to Las Vegas said that had very little impact on the NHL’s decision regarding expansion to Las Vegas.
NHL commissioner remained steadfast in saying the league’s Board of Governors will be voting on only three expansion options: no expansion at all; expansion deferred; or expansion to Las Vegas and/or Quebec City. Len Redkoles/NHLI/Getty Images
As far as why the expansion process has moved along at a snail’s pace, one of the items delaying things was establishing expansion draft rules that owners could live with. The NHL wants the proposed expansion team(s) to be more competitive than in years past, which means exposing higher-quality players.
The league shared some of those potential expansion draft details back at the March GMs meetings, although since then some of those proposed rules have already been tweaked or changed.
Most notably, part of the initial expansion draft …
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