Caution for Another NHL Expansion

The exact timeline of when this may happen is unclear, but there has been plenty of noise surrounding this for quite awhile. Really, the Seattle Kraken had hardly played a game before people were asking when the NHL would expand next. But today, I want to look at whether it’s really a good idea for the NHL to expand again.

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The Historical Success of Modern Expansions

Since the Post-Merger Expansion Era began in 1991, the NHL has seen 11 new franchises join the league. The first was the San Jose Sharks in 1991, and the most recent was the Seattle Kraken in 2021. Combined, this is how the expansion teams have fared in the 35 seasons played since the Sharks joined the league (with W-L-T-OTL record):

• 10,290-9,127-790-1,994 (.462 true winning percentage)

• 138 combined playoff appearances (47.62% of possible appearances)

• 16 Stanley Cup Finals appearances

  • 9 Eastern (four expansions) to 7 Western (seven expansions)

• 7 Stanley Cup victories (20% of total Stanley Cup wins since Sharks joined league)

• Expansions account for 4 of 6 teams to never reach the Stanley Cup Finals since 1981 (85 combined expansion team seasons

• Expansions account for 7 of 10 teams to never win the Stanley Cup Finals (155 combined expansion team seasons to 159 non-expansion team seasons)

• 6 of 7 expansion team Stanley Cup victories are associated with no state income tax

• 1 of 7 expansion team Stanley Cup victories strongly associated with Scott Niedermayer and Jean-Sebastien Giguere‘s giant shoulder pads (Anaheim)

In all, post-merger expansion teams have not really been all that successful relative to the rest of the league, with only a few teams reaping benefits over the last 35 years. More often than not, expansion teams flounder and settle somewhere between perpetual bottom feeding and inescapable mediocrity. Will the Minnesota Wild ever make a Conference Finals again? Will the Seattle Kraken make the playoffs a second time? Will the Columbus Blue Jackets make the playoffs again? Are the Winnipeg Jets entering another long playoff drought? Will the Ottawa Senators or Nashville Predators ever get back to consistent playoff appearances? What success do fans of expansion teams really have to look forward to?

Gary Bettman’s Tendency to Support No-State Income Tax Teams and TV Market Impact

Of the six current teams in the National Hockey League that play in states with no state income tax, five are post-1979 expansions: Tampa Bay, Nashville*, Florida, Vegas, and Seattle. The other, the Dallas Stars, moved from Minnesota to Texas in 1993, just six seasons prior to winning their one and only Stanley Cup.

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*Tennessee only recently abolished the state income tax, while the other teams here have played their entire existences under no tax

Now, with Allan Walsh reporting that Houston and Atlanta will receive expansion teams in the near future, the NHL will gain one more no-tax state team in Houston while Atlanta will play under a flat-tax rate of 5.49%, which is on the high end for low to middle income earners but more of a medium ground for high-income earners such as professional athletes. In his Tweet, though, Walsh is also responding to a report that the NHL is valuing large television markets in their decision. With Houston and Atlanta being the largest television markets without an NHL team and both being among the 10 largest markets in the country, it certainly looks like a good idea to target them for expansion.

However, the fate of the Atlanta Thrashers should not be ignored. Atlanta struggled with attendance issues despite playing in one of the largest cities in the United States. Georgia does not have a strong presence in hockey, with their one of their only professional hockey teams being the Atlanta Gladiators of the ECHL. They have been one of the worst teams in the ECHL since once making a Cup Final in 2006, and they have not made the second round of the ECHL playoffs since 2013, and they have broadly seen attendance decline since a high in 2005. Generally, it follows that Houston, whose AHL team saw significantly higher attendance prior to being moved in 2013, would have an easier time supporting a hockey team. Georgia has no top-level college hockey, it has no teams above ECHL level, and it already has a failed NHL franchise under its belt.

In an age of widespread streaming and sports cable channel issues, a more reliable marker of viability may be state hockey presence. Wisconsin strikes me as a better area for expansion, with Madison serving as a small market within driving distance of the larger Milwaukee market. This could follow the Buffalo Sabres model of popularity, which combines Buffalo with several smaller television markets throughout upstate and western New York to form a devoted fanbase. Madison to Milwaukee is a comparable distance to the Buffalo to Rochester drive.

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Diluting Talent and Expansion Drafts and Alternatives to NHL Expansion

While the NHL is not expanding as rapidly as they did in the 1990s, there are considerations for the effects expansion may have already had on the league.

• League save percentage has dropped from .913 in 2017 to .908 in 2021 to .896 in 2026.

• Total players have jumped from 983 in 2017 to 1,011 in 2021 to 1,038 in 2026.

Hockey fans can probably identify the issues that are difficult for teams to overcome in today’s NHL. It’s difficult to find good goaltending. It’s even harder to roll four good centers. 32 NHL teams losing another set of middle six forwards, second pairing defensemen, and backup goaltenders is only going to exacerbate those issues, and the gap between the average top-line player and fourth-liner is going to expand. I do not think this will be good for the quality of product on the ice, as fans are more interested by close, tense games than high-scoring blowouts.

An issue lingering in my mind over the past few weeks with Sunny Mehta and Braden Birch’s overhaul of the Utica Comets is the AHL’s Veteran Rule, which restricts AHL teams from having “too many” older players on the team to protect the AHL’s status as a developmental league. I think this cross-identity for the AHL as simultaneously a professional and developmental league may be serving to hold it back a bit in terms of quality of play, and eliminating the AHL’s Veteran Rule would prevent the loss of North American hockey talent to leagues such as the KHL, where 18 of the top 50 scorers in 2025-26 were North American. By boosting AHL teams, NHL clubs would have access to a higher level of talent in players who would be near the top of AHL scoring and could serve as better NHL call-up depth than the league currently has.

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Expanding the ECHL’s veteran rule in turn could establish the league as a center for younger player development, giving it a better calling card for attendance. In this sense, I think to the Minor League Baseball system, where the AA league has emerged as a top player development league, while AAA baseball has morphed over time into more of a veteran holding league and last step for prospects. With leagues having distinct identities, AAA baseball attracts higher attendance and AA baseball is a center for developmental coaching. If the NHL, AHL, and ECHL took more steps to improve the quality of depth hockey in North America, I think they would be in a better place to support expansion to 34 teams. As of now, though, any expansions would be more likely to go the way of the Columbus Blue Jackets or Seattle Kraken than the way of the Vegas Golden Knights or Tampa Bay Lightning, as Houston and Atlanta will just be picking from whatever scraps have been left by the most recent expansions in a league with very little precious depth. And if one of them is allowed to draft years before the other like Vegas was before Seattle, the gap between them may be similar.

Your Thoughts

What do you think about the rumors of expansion? Do you think the league is ready? Leave your thoughts in the comments below, and thanks for reading.