In April, the NHL approved the sale of the Arizona Coyotes to Smith Entertainment Group, which is relocating the team to Salt Lake City, Utah. The league then gave Alex Meruelo, who sold the Coyotes, a five-year window to get everything in order for a potential expansion franchise in Phoenix.
With that in mind, OntarioBets.com – your source for Ontario sports betting coverage – created odds to handicap which American and Canadian cities might be in line to land an NHL expansion franchise. Here are the contenders as we see them:
City | Percentage Chance | Odds |
Atlanta, Georgia | 75.0% | -300 |
Houston, Texas | 66.7% | -200 |
Quebec City, Quebec | 12.5% | +700 |
Kansas City, Missouri | 10.0% | +900 |
Phoenix, Arizona | 10.0% | +900 |
Cincinnati, Ohio | 9.1% | +1000 |
Omaha, Nebraska | 7.4% | +1250 |
The Field | 9.1% | +1000 |
*Odds created to reflect addition of two teams at once
These odds are for infotainment purposes only. You will not find them at any Ontario sportsbook apps.
League officials have been bearish on expansion talk lately, primarily because the most recent round, which brought Seattle and Las Vegas into the league, ended just a couple of years ago. However, should Meruelo be able to build a new arena in the Phoenix area within the next five years, he’d have the right to revive the Coyotes as an expansion franchise.
Given the team’s struggles in finding a permanent home in the Phoenix area, that’s far from certain. However, should that happen, the NHL would have 33 teams. An odd number is not necessarily untenable – the NHL had 31 teams for four years until 2021-22, the Kraken’s first season – but having 17 teams in one conference and not the other could create some problems. A nine-team division seems unwieldy.
Se our Stanley Cup odds page for a look at the current playoff teams.
Atlanta has already received two NHL expansion franchises. In 1972, it welcomed the Flames, who stayed in Georgia for eight seasons until bolting for Calgary. In 1999, the Thrashers took to the ice. However, that team lasted just 11 seasons before it took off for Winnipeg, which lost its original World Hockey Association/NHL team in 1996 after it was moved to Arizona. That former Thrashers franchise is now the second version of the Winnipeg Jets.
Despite a troubled history in the Deep South’s biggest metro area, there are groups in the area who believe the Atlanta area can host hockey again. In March, a group led by former NHL player Anson Carter requested the league to consider it for a franchise based in Alpharetta, a northern suburb of Atlanta.
With a metro population of more than 6.2 million, Atlanta currently has a larger market than 23 cities with teams, including Toronto and the other Canadian cities. However, it’s not the biggest U.S. market without an NHL team.
Houston has a metropolitan population of 7.4 million. It has never had an NHL franchise, though it was home to a WHA team in the mid-1970s. One thing going for the city is Tilman Fertitta, the Houston businessman whose owns the NBA’s Houston Rockets and the chain of Golden Nugget casinos. Fertitta has said that he has been in talks with league officials about bringing an expansion franchise to the county’s fifth-largest market.
A second NHL franchise in the Lone Star State would also give the Dallas Stars a natural rival. However, even with its size, some in the area have noted a hockey team would be competing with numerous major pro and collegiate teams in the area.
“You also have to be realistic,” Harris County Houston Sports Authority CEO Janis Burke told the Houston Business Journal in March. “We’ve got college sports and a lot of professional sports, and somebody coming in would need to put the work in to make sure they can break through and get their marketing message out.”
We rate Atlanta (-300 in American odds, or a 75% implied probability) and Houston (-200, 66.7%) as the two markets most likely to land new teams, should the NHL decide to expand again beyond its current 32 teams.
Quebec City (+700 odds) is the largest Canadian market without an NHL team. While it is slightly larger than Winnipeg, the metro area still has less than 900,000 people. It has been nearly 30 years since the Quebec Nordiques left for Colorado. The NHL will play two preseason games there in October, but leaders there would have to present a compelling case to bring a team there instead of a larger U.S. market.
Kansas City was once considered a leading contender for an NHL or an NBA franchise. The city was once home to the Scouts in the NHL (now the New Jersey Devils) and the NBA’s Kings, but those teams moved away decades ago. KC has an NHL-ready arena in the T-Mobile Center, and it would be a natural rival to the St. Louis Blues. That said, it would be on the smaller end of the spectrum in terms of market size. Only six U.S. metros with NHL teams have a smaller population. We give KC +1000 odds, the same as Phoenix, among cities seeking a second chance in the NHL.
There has been some buzz lately around Cincinnati but, while the city has fully embraced its MLS team, the market is about the same size as Kansas City. A Cincy team would also draw from nearby Dayton and Louisville markets, but the Ohio city would need to build a new arena to replace the antiquated Heritage Bank Center. City officials are planning a study for that, but there’s no timetable for construction. Plus Columbus has the Blue Jackets, only about 100 miles away.
Omaha has also expressed interest in an NHL franchise, which would be the only major pro team in Nebraska. But Omaha would be the smallest U.S. market in the league, with roughly 170,000 fewer people than Buffalo’s 1.2 million.
As for this season, the three Hart Trophy finalists have been announced; see our NHL MVP odds page to find out more.
USA Today photo by Stephen Brashear
Author
Steve is an accomplished, award-winning reporter with more than 20 years of experience covering gaming, sports, politics and business. He has written for the Associated Press, Reuters, The Louisville Courier Journal, The Center Square and numerous other publications. Based in Louisville, Ky., Steve has covered the expansion of sports betting in the U.S. and other gaming matters. He shares his expertise on OntarioBets, among other sites.
Cited by leading media organizations, such as:
