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I don't think alignment is going to factor in to the decision on the next expansion markets at all... maybe as a tiebreaker if the committee is presented with two equal ownership groups.
I think you can pencil in Seattle and Quebec. Probably one of those is a relocation spot which will open up another expansion team. Quebec, at minimum, will push either Columbus or Detroit back to the West. If team # 32 is Greater Toronto (or miraculously Hartford or Atlanta), then both teams will have to go back West. Maybe they can bargain with Florida and Tampa to move in with the other Sunbelt teams in the West (along with Winnipeg). I can't imagine why FLO or TB would do that. I would imagine that to some degree the Florida teams will be a true extension of the Northeast between retirement homes and winter vacations. I'm sure they're loving the idea of having the Leafs, Bruins, Canadiens, and Red Wings coming to town.
Colorado is your swing team to the Pacific if Houston, KC, or Milwaukee come in to play.
Because their opinion means nothing. This realignment has proven that since moving CBJ and PIT to the NE and FLA and TB to the Atlantic would have been the most logical thing to do, but the league valued the PIT-PHI rivalry over logical alignment. If Illitch wants the Wings in the East, they will stay in the East since his influence is enough to kill the CHI-DET rivalry. Columbus of course will then say they need a local rival if they get kicked west and it would be better for Florida and Tampa who are already on an island to be sent west as partner teams. Toronto, Montreal, Ottawa, Boston, Quebec and Buffalo would also be in favor of kicking TB and FL west to cut their travel.
Most of the markets listed as having not enough personal income to support the teams they have seem to have little trouble supporting their hockey teams. Pittsburgh, Minneapolis-St. Paul, Nashville, Tampa Bay and Buffalo are all listed in the top 20, yet attendance for all is over 99% of capacity.
Of the three teams that are truly struggling, attendance-wise - those being Phoenix, NY Islanders and Columbus - only Phoenix appears on the list.
So many thriving teams appearing on the deficit list, while only one of the three struggling teams appears would suggest that personal income is not an adequate marker for the success or failure of a team.
Similarly, four of the five lowest-rated teams (Los Angeles, Anaheim, NY Islanders, New Jersey) play in the two biggest markets in the country. It makes more sense to look at the teams with lowest viewership. Those would be Dallas (21,000 households, up 50 percent), Phoenix (17,000, 142 percent), Colorado (16,000, down 11 percent), Columbus (11,000, up 22 percent) and lastly, the Florida Panthers, who average just 4,000 households per game. That's up from last year, too.
For Milwaukee to get a NHL team, realistically: The Bucks have to move, The Milwaukee Admirals(AHL) would have to move, a new Arena and the OK from the Chicago Blackhawks and since old man Wirtz is gone that last one shouldn't be a problem.
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