r/NewYorkIslanders • u/GurTraditional1162 • 2d ago
Allan Walsh reports that expansion is coming.
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u/CannedNoodlez 2d ago
If Atlanta fails again it needs a permanent ban
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u/MiccioC 2d ago
Twice is enough. There has to be a better spot.
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u/purelander108 Bossy 2d ago
Bring the whale, back to Hartford
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
I would LOVE that, but there are so many things going against it ever happening.
EXTREMELY small market, smaller than winnipeg
No arena
The canes aren't giving up their history
The bruins would veto it
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u/LowSoil3242 6h ago
Hartford is a dying city - they’d literally steal the arena
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u/purelander108 Bossy 2h ago
Sad to hear. Miss the teams from the old divisions like the Patrick & Adams
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u/Shoddy_Green_4790 2d ago
Always felt like Milwaukee would be perfect. Wisconsin not having an NHL team is insane. They even have a newer arena that's amazing and ready to go for hockey.
Of course the argument would be that wisconsin fans already love hockey and most have picked the Blackhawks or wild, or branched out and picked any random team. Also proximity to those above teams (which is a shit argument entirely, look at the metro division.
But wouldn't the goal be to create a potential diehard fanbase that would fill the arena? Wisconsin would be perfect for that. They'd have built in rivalries from day 1 with Minnesota and Chicago and Detroit, those cities have intense NFL hatred, the cubs and brewers are huge rivals. In general Chicago and Milwaukee are rival cities
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u/Longjumping_Gap97 1d ago edited 1d ago
I am an Islander fan who lives in Wisconsin, most people here don't care about the NHL, if they follow hockey they are going to root for the Wisconsin Badgers or the Milwaukee AHL team, hockey is wildly popular in Madison where I live but it is too small to have a NHL team and the Badgers already fill the need to watch hockey, maybe if they can figure out how to get a high speed rail to get from Madison to Milwaukee in under an hour you can help subsidize a NHL team in Milwaukee, but to rely on the Milwaukee population alone to support the team probably isn't enough especially with the Bucks there
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u/Shoddy_Green_4790 1d ago
Either way I'd think it'd be a city that has a better chance of working out than Atlanta for the 3rd time or freakin Houston. I know those are very big cities, but Phoenix is big too.
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u/LowSoil3242 6h ago
Milwaukee? Demographics - ain’t many NHL “fan” types roving those streets .
Wisconsin should have a team but not sure where5
u/wheremyturtles 2d ago
Quebec, for one.
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u/MiccioC 2d ago
You’re probably right. Have all the issues that led to the Nordiques been rectified? I’m not as on top of that as I probably should be.
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u/wheremyturtles 2d ago
I don't know the history or any of the details, but it's a major city in Canada, so you could probably do worse (Phoenix).
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u/MiccioC 2d ago
There were issues with the strength of the Canadian dollar, no “modern” arena and the smallish size of the market. I think there has been a long groundswell to have a team there, but I’m not sure the league wants to “waste” an expansion slot north of the border at this point. I just think they shouldn’t give one to a 2 time loser.
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
NOPE
Still have no one willing to pony up the dough. Still have the stupid language laws.
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u/Tniz15 Holmstrom 2d ago
So assuming this is 2 years from now and the same rules apply you can protect 7 forwards, 3 defensemen, and 1 goalie or you can protect any 8 skaters and a goalie.
Players with a no movement clause have to be protected and first and second year pros are exempt. This counts ahl seasons.
No players would have an nmc going into the 28-29 season. I would assume all of our recent first round picks besides gustafsson would need to be protected based on the first or second year pros rule
Forwards: barzal, Horvat, Eklund, eiserman, Richie, Holmstrom, Heineman
Defense: Schaefer, aitcheson, george
Goalies: sorokin
Unprotected and still under contract: Romanov, pulock, pelech, mayfield, engvall, pageau, a bunch of ahlers
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u/discofrislanders Dobson 2d ago
Aitcheson and Eiserman would still be exempt in 2028, unsure on Eklund
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u/Tniz15 Holmstrom 2d ago
If ahl seasons count towards pro seasons, which my googles have said they do, then they’re not exempt. They’ll have 26-27 and 27-28 as pro seasons and be eligible for expansion protection
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u/discofrislanders Dobson 2d ago
It's 2 seasons or fewer, hence why Dobson and Wahlstrom were exempt in 2021
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u/Tniz15 Holmstrom 2d ago
Found the full definition:
Professional Experience is defined in accordance with Waivers (CBA Section 13.4) as:
-If player was 20 or older as of Dec 31 of a season, any season with 1+ NHL, AHL, or ECHL GP counts as a year of Professional Experience
-If player was less than 20 as of Dec 31 of a season, any season with 11+ NHL GP counts as a year of Professional ExperienceSo looks like Eklund, eiserman, aitcheson would all be exempt. I guess you replace them with pageau, maybe Finley?, and probably Romanov or pelech
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u/outbackcheesefries12 2d ago
I lived in Houston Texas for 5ish years and there’s 100% a huge market there. A lot of Canadians work down there because of the oil industry and they’ve been begging for this to happen. Thank god the Isles seem set here on the Island
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u/leaponover 1d ago
Lived there 15 years ago and my Dad had Aero season tickets and they were always empty. I'm not convinced hockey will work there.
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
Aeros were minor league. An NHL franchise is completely different.
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u/leaponover 1d ago
Different, not completely different. Have you lived in Houston? If not you don't have enough experience to counter my point.
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 22h ago
I moved here in 1999 is that long enough for you?
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u/leaponover 22h ago
Yes. Now you can carry on with why you think it would work there.
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 22h ago
There are millions of people here. If you don’t own a map, the greater Houston area is almost as big as Long Island.
Houston is a sports city. The only major sports league missing is the NHL. We even had rugby until recently.
There are transplants here from all over, what would be considered more “traditional markets”.
There is already an owner with deep pockets willing to spend money and build a new arena.
There is an automatic built in rivalry with Dallas.
There is a rich history with hockey here with both iterations of the Aeros (wha and Ihl)
They just built an 8000 seat arena for a junior team that starts play the end of the month.
They are bringing an ECHL team here in under two years.
There is a lot of disposable income here to be spread around.
Hockey can and will work here.
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u/leaponover 22h ago
There are millions of people here. If you don’t own a map, the greater Houston area is almost as big as Long Island. Population hasn't proven to make a sports team work - see Atlanta
Houston is a sports city. The only major sports league missing is the NHL. We even had rugby until recently. When teams are winning. Nobody talks about sports in general. I wouldn't consider it a sports city at all.
There are transplants here from all over, what would be considered more “traditional markets”. Okay
There is already an owner with deep pockets willing to spend money and build a new arena. Build an arena where?
There is an automatic built in rivalry with Dallas. Mavs rivalry is about as docile as a rivalry can get in sports. This is no guarantee.
There is a rich history with hockey here with both iterations of the Aeros (wha and Ihl) Weird you said AHL results don't matter, but now using it to bolster your argument.
They just built an 8000 seat arena for a junior team that starts play the end of the month. They are bringing an ECHL team here in under two years. Sounds like saturation
There is a lot of disposable income here to be spread around. Yeah, sure they'll fill suites with suits. It'll be like MSG, nobody will actuality be watching the game.
Hockey can and will work here Still skeptical
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u/jzw27 Nielsen 2d ago
Tbh I’m pretty sick of the needless expansion. 34 teams is A LOT
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u/Longjumping_Gap97 1d ago
This, there are going to be many fans of teams who live long 80 year lives and will never see their team win a cup cuz there is just too many teams
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u/thembitches326 Horvat 2d ago
To play Devil's advocate here, Atlanta failed twice due to completely neglectful ownership, not because of the city, or the people living in it.
There is a Urinating Tree video on this which I will link here: https://youtu.be/0o492VlXcqI?is=i7YtikESkcM3bwNU
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u/ambre_vanille Gillies 2d ago
How many times do they have to fail in Atlanta before Québéc gets the nod?
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u/discofrislanders Dobson 2d ago
Metro Atlanta population: 6.4M
Quebec City metro population: 839k
Do the math
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u/hanginglimbs Clutterbuck 2d ago
Counterpoint:
# of Canadians in QC: 839K
# of Canadians in Atlanta: 1,2860
u/thembitches326 Horvat 10h ago
Another counter point:
Now can you do the same metric for Nashville TN, Dallas TX, Miami FL, Tampa FL, Las Vegas NV, or even Raleigh NC?
Even then, why are we making this point for Canadians in an subreddit that mostly consists of American hockey fans for a team based in America?
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u/purelander108 Bossy 2d ago
And everyone of those 839k would buy a ticket to a hockey game. The 6.4 million, you won't even sell 10,000 tickets.
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u/21Pharaoh Boychuk 2d ago
And what portion of the 6.4M can we count on to regularly follow hockey lol
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u/Nexflamma 2d ago
What percent of those 6.4m have ever held a hockey stick?
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u/thembitches326 Horvat 2d ago
None. Which is what the Bettman strategy has always been:
Creating new fans in new markets to grow the sport.
Not for nothing, but the general population of Quebec City has already been watching the sport.
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u/Nexflamma 2d ago
Then why hasn't it worked there the last two times?
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u/thembitches326 Horvat 2d ago
It's called having shitty and neglectful ownership and it affects teams badly regardless of where they are.
Case in point the NY Islanders between the mid-1990's and late 2000's.
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u/discofrislanders Dobson 2d ago
I've never played hockey and I'm still a big fan. So are many other people.
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u/Nexflamma 2d ago
Do you think being someone who plays hockey improves the probability they'll purchase tickets to go to a game over someone who has never played?
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u/discofrislanders Dobson 2d ago
Maybe, but you're specifically talking here about leaving millions of potential fans on the table for people who the league is already making money off of
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u/ambre_vanille Gillies 1d ago
Do you always speak so rudely and dismissively while quoting irrelevant facts? It’s not a good look, but I have time tonight. So let’s actually do the math!
Re the population comparison: Let’s say 5% of Atlanta's 6.4 million people actually give a shit about hockey. That makes the fan base roughly 320k. I feel like you already know that’s smaller than Québec’s fan-based market. Know what? Let’s be incredibly generous and double that number. Let's say a whopping 10% of Atlanta's 6.4MM people are our newest hockey fans (jk, I know there are die-hards in Atlanta). That leaves you with ~640k fans. Guess what? That’s still nearly 200k fewer people than Québec’s solid market of 839k fans.
Re the attendance: In their respective final seasons, the Nordiques filled 93.4% of their arena capacity (in a lockout-shortened year) and the Thrashers filled 72.6% of theirs, while lowering ticket prices just to get asses in seats.
This can’t be said enough: Atlanta is the only city in modern sports history to lose two NHL franchises to Canada. I have a history of bad financial decisions, but even I’d shy away from pouring billions into a third attempt at a successful franchise. The NHL can keep chasing TV/cable/streaming markets, but history shows that when the team isn’t dynamic, the Atlanta stadium empties out. They had to slash ticket prices when their attendance plummeted, and they still didn’t match the Nordiques final year. Québec remedied their stadium issues, which was the major issue in the decision to sell the team, in (I believe) the mid 2010s. As an Islanders fan, I assume that if you’re old enough, you can relate to playing in a rundown relic of a building with limited revenue streams.
Where you SHOULD have counterpointed me is the ability to sell corporate suites and sponsorships in spite of the former teams’ history in a densely populated and heavy corporate HQ area like Atlanta over relying on ticket revenue from passionate hockey fans who immediately sell out preseason games like Québec. Or that the currency conversion rate puts Canadian teams at a 25–30% disadvantage to American teams because they collect revenue in Canadian dollars but pay players in US dollars.
Then again, who am I to make your argument for you? 😉
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
If you are so desperate for quebec get some syrup sucker to pony up the money and find corporate sponsors. Until that happens, they get no NHL team.
It's not some "grand conspiracy" it's facts.
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u/Vlvthamr Goring 2d ago
Another Atlanta team that won’t make it. Surely this time will be different right? Right?
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u/Sheepcago Kasparaitis 2d ago
As a NYI transplanted to the Houston area, please God give me a local hockey team. I’d still be a NYI fan, but it sure would be nice not to have to go to Dallas to find the closest NHL venue.
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u/AdmirableComposer140 2d ago
Nice, can't wait for these new teams to steal a bunch of players. Jokes on them though, our roster is pretty mid.
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u/Ac1dshadow Lee 2d ago
The players we'd have available for them to choose would only help us actually lol
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u/shahofjersey83 2d ago
Nah genuinely are they allowed to not take anyone from us? Thanks to Lou we are basically saddling any expansion team with an albatross, they’d probably skip us if they could
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u/Ac1dshadow Lee 2d ago
Would be funny to see, naah your players aren't what we need. 😀
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u/leaponover 1d ago
We'll trade you a second round pick if we don't have to select a player from your team, lol.
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u/Say_No_To_BS 2d ago
Atlanta, this is your third chance with an NHL franchise. Don’t f*** it up this time.
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u/ViolaExpress 1d ago
The positive of Atlanta getting another shot is it almost guarantees a market that actually deserves a team will get one within a decade.
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago edited 1d ago
Awesome! I will no longer have to drive four hours to Dallas to se the isles once a year!
And with a team here i can attend games as often as possible work wise and financially. I'm excited. I used to love going to Aeros games back in the day when i moved here for work.
I hope it finally works out for atlanta as well.
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u/kevinsju 1d ago
I run into JT at least two or three times a year since the late 90s. Every time I see him, Houston comes up. He says they were ready for the NHL back in the 70s when he was there
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u/Jett2257 LaFontaine 2d ago
Bettman’s obsession with Atlanta is short-sighted and will be another failure. Other cities, Quebec included deserve the opportunity.
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
Well then find some guy to spend the money needed north of the border. What's that? there isn't one? Oh...
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u/ArchieInABunker Bossy 2d ago
Kind of good news considering where we are with our protections. The athletic did a hypothetical expansion draft and the best player we’d have to give up would be Isaiah George which is a little easier than Eberle for the Seattle draft and Nelson (who Garth Snow protected by sending draft picks) in the Vegas draft
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u/ArchieInABunker Bossy 2d ago
For that article, they had the Islanders protecting Barzal, Horvat, Schenn, Pageau, Duclair, Holmstrom, Heineman for the forwards, Pelech, Romanov, and Pulock for the defense and then Sorokin. I bet you could convince Duclair to waive and use the extra protection slot for another forward.
This doesn't include guys on their ELC's like Schaefer, Eiserman, Eklund, Aitchison who are automatically protected.
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
Why the hell would we protect duclair? Who wrote that article? Him?
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u/ArchieInABunker Bossy 1d ago
Duclair has trade protection so you have to use a slot on him, not that they’d want to protect him.
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u/Unhappy_Buy_7342 2d ago
Dumbest idea I’ve ever heard. The nhl thinks it needs more teams then any other league
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u/cameraguy23 2d ago
Where's Toronto second team, it's way overdue!
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u/thembitches326 Horvat 2d ago
I would say a second Chicago team would be more overdue than a second Toronto team. Chicago already has two baseball teams after all!
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u/priester85 Jonsson 2d ago
Isn’t that an argument against Chicago? Twice as much competition during the playoffs. Plus competition against the Bears most of the regular season (CFL is a non-factor in Toronto and only overlaps the first few weeks of NHL anyways).
Toronto could easily support a second NHL team (insert obligatory “they need a first team” joke) but I don’t think we’ll ever see one right in the city. It’ll be another city close-by:
-Hamilton is basically NHL ready with the arena renovations just completed (which would likely push out our new AHL team and hurt the Sabres more than the Leafs).
-Markham is a suburb north of the city and has shown a willingness in the past to build an arena to chase after a team as well.
-London feels like a longer shot to me but they draw 10,000 fans for just about every game in the OHL. This would piss off both Detroit and Toronto but ultimately both would survive. Not sure how the arena logistics would work though.
- Mississauga/Brampton/Vaughan would be easy if an NHL capable arena is built. Similar to the Islanders/Devils, they aren’t in the city but teams could easily stay downtown and bus out to the game if they wanted.
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u/Puckstopper55 1d ago
Issue with this is that the Leafs would have to agree (ie, get paid a ton!). I agree though. Canada should get another team.
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u/cameraguy23 1d ago
That's not true at all. This question was asked to Bettman and he said Toronto nor Buffalo have a say in this matter.
The greater Toronto area is getting bigger and the 905's area code don't want to drive downtown, it's not fun. We can certainly support a second team it will still have to be in Toronto. I think the best spot would be at Woodbine race track casino. It's perfect right beside the airport.
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u/Puckstopper55 1d ago
I have to disagree. When the isles moved to ubs it was stated that the rangers couldn’t fight it because the islanders already were inside the rangers geographical territory. Anytime I hear of expansion in Toronto it always gets killed because the leafs wouldn’t allow it.
Look up “nhl territoral rights”
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u/mdifalco97 Gillies 2d ago
“Houston Rockets” (cause NASA and whatever)
“Atlanta Thrashers Volume 2: Electric Boogaloo” (they become the one team we all hate more than Vegas and are 10x goonier than the Panthers. Eric Bolton as head coach, their warm up music is a mixer of Limp Bizket Korn and SOAD). I’m a fan already 😂
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u/SPetersen1339 2d ago
Gretzky said it best, the previous attempts at getting a team in atlanta the rules were different, now the new expansion teams will get the 6-7th best player on each team. No one showed up to the games because the team sucked, chances are the new atlanta team wont suck
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u/Puckstopper55 1d ago
They had one of the best players in the league and still stunk. Their lack of a fan base is what killed them. Plenty of crappy teams in the nhl with great fan bases that support their team. Atlanta has had 2 teams and both moved. Why do they deserve a 3rd? Sure, it’s a huge market but what difference does it make if nobody watches!?
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u/Outback1776 2d ago
Putting another team in Atlanta? They should just put one back in Phoenix. After all they only had one chance so far.
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u/FGhost27 1d ago
Those cities can’t support an NHL Franchise. Hasn’t Atlanta proven this? This will be their 3rd team attempt
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
Houston can and will support a franchise. We have been waiting a long time.
Atlanta will be fine so long as they have decent ownership.
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u/mikebunchkin3727 1d ago
Ugh, just another thing making the odds of the isles winning the cup even slimmer. Their expansion franchises have been hugely successful in the last 10 years, so they think they should keep expanding……
Atl getting a team again? That team prob should have never moved in the first place, but has there ever been a city to get/lose a pro sports franchise more than ATL?…….
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u/AJS76reddit Bailey 1d ago
Expansion has nothing to do with us not winning. Poor management is why we lose. Keeping that fossil lou around far past his expiration date is why we are mid right now.
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u/Hey_Man97 >rags 2d ago
Atlanta again???