Expansion is on the horizon.
Speaking to The Hockey News on Friday during the NHL's European Media Tour stop in Munich, deputy commissioner Bill Daly provided insight into the league's plans to add a 33rd team.
According to Daly, the league has continued serious discussions with an ownership group interested in Texas, with Houston as the priority market and Austin as an alternative.
“We have agreed on the framework of a transaction, and we’re all working to get toward that,” Daly said. “We hope to have definitive agreements in place that would commit the franchise as early as December this year. And we expect that they’ll be able to begin play as early as the 2029-30 season, closing the transaction early 2029.”
He added, “We’re just farther along in our discussions with the interest that developed in Texas. As we began those discussions, it was focused on Houston. As we progressed, the alternative to Austin was raised, and certainly I think our ownership group is willing to consider the benefits of expansion at Austin, although I still think the priority is probably Houston.”
Meanwhile, the deputy commissioner also discussed the possibility of expansion in Canada, noting that the league doesn't see sufficient interest at this time.
“I’d say the interest in terms of owning and operating a franchise in Canada is less vibrant than it is for some markets in the United States,” Daly said. “With respect to other expansion interests in Canada, kind of bona fide interest from real cities, is fairly low. I think we’re in most of the big cities in Canada already.”
Quebec City, which was previously home to the NHL's Nordiques, is a Canadian market that most recently put forth an expansion bid in 2015, alongside Las Vegas.
However, league commissioner Gary Bettman announced a year later that the bid, submitted by Quebecor, a Montreal-based Canadian media and telecommunications giant, had been deferred.
“While the facility (Videotron Centre) is first-rate and great and we think the city can work because of the passion for hockey, we don’t really have a potential ownership group that is kind of willing or kind of step forward and said they want to buy a franchise and want to operate in Quebec City," said Daly.
