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Not Oilers related specifically but Ryan Smith's company, (owners of the Utah Jazz) has officially submitted a request for an expansion team to Utah. Many people will not be happy about this (I'm talking about the "we don't need expansion" people). But I think this will be good for the league and the sport should it happen. Dilution of talent is one thing that is always brought up when expansion is floated, which I actually think is a good thing for the league. We saw immediate jumps in scoring after the additions of Vegas and Seattle, most likely due to the gap between the best and worst players widening, allowing the best to do what they do better. Making games more exciting. Second of all, SLC could be a great hockey market and is one that isn't already over saturated with other sports franchises. Only the Jazz and Real Salt Lake call the city (and state) home. I would prefer (selfishly) for the NHL to look at giving a team back to somewhere like Quebec or Hartford but as far as other options go I think Utah is a solid choice.
 
Kansas City, Cleveland would be ahead you would think, but yes, QC is a MUST and Hamilton or a second GTA team are also needed.
 
Also on another note, 5 unnamed players from the 2018 Canadian World Junior Team have been summoned to London to face charges of sexual assault. The players, have not been named although as a consequence of both players being involved and recently taking leaves from their respective teams, Dillon Dube and Carter Hart are expected to be among them. As a disclaimer the rest of this is all specultion but Alex Formenton, Boris Tkachouk, Colton Point and others are on the table. It is thought that Drake Batherson and Cale Makar are innocent and will not be among the players, early in the investigation it seemed as though Batherson was involved however it seems that has changed? Again all speculation here, I don't actually know anything for sure.

Edit: Just after writing this Formenton has also been granted a leave of absence
 
IanO said:
Kansas City, Cleveland would be ahead you would think, but yes, QC is a MUST and Hamilton or a second GTA team are also needed.
Click to expand...
Houston (or Austin) would seem to be good choices as well. Also as much as we like to clown on Atlanta, the main reason the Thrashers were moved wasn't because of a lack of interest in the city but an inept and dysfunctional ownership group paired with a bad arena deal. Milwaukee also has been floated and works great as a more traditional market.
 
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IanO said:
Kansas City, Cleveland would be ahead you would think, but yes, QC is a MUST and Hamilton or a second GTA team are also needed.
Click to expand...
KC and Cleveland?

It's Houston, Atlanta and Salt Lake as the front runners. Atlanta is building a new arena and apparently this ownership group is very much into bringing at NHL team back to Atlanta. Salt Lake has been VERY aggressive in wanting a team and Houston's owner has said he wants in too.
 
erudyk_29 said:
Houston (or Austin) would seem to be good choices as well. Also as much as we like to clown on Atlanta, the main reason the Thrashers were moved wasn't because of a lack of interest in the city but an inept and dysfunctional ownership group paired with a bad arena deal. Milwaukee also has been floated and works great as a more traditional market.
Click to expand...

bodsbods9090 said:
KC and Cleveland?

It's Houston, Atlanta and Salt Lake as the front runners. Atlanta is building a new arena and apparently this ownership group is very much into bringing at NHL team back to Atlanta. Salt Lake has been VERY aggressive in wanting a team and Houston's owner has said he wants in too.
Click to expand...

Third time's the charm for Atlanta. Their prior NHL teams are now in Calgary and Winnipeg.
 
I can kind of see KC as being a future home to a franchise (and I personally would love to have a "second team" in Missouri. The first ever Hockey game I watched was a Mizzou Tiger's game during my Master's at the University of Missouri).

I do think a QC team would make a lot of sense, too, more than SLC, tbh. While Canadian markets are, generally speaking, smaller, they punch well above their weight in terms of financial success. Edmonton and Toronto are tied for 1st amongst the league in revenue generation, and Canadian teams average revenue was higher than the league average for the past 5 years, despite all but Toronto being in the bottom half of market size.


Hell, if we only consider the CMA/MSA metric Edmonton is the 5th smallest market in the league, Calgary is the 6th and Ottawa is the 4th, by a very slim margin between the 3, but at least a full half a million fewer people than the next markets up the list (San Jose, Nashville and Columbus, in that order from smallest to largest, around 2 to 2.1M).
 
Pickard has been in net for 3 of the Oilers victories in this 14 game win streak.

In fact the streak began on Dec 21 with him in net when we beat New Jersey and he was also in net for the wins against Anaheim (win#5) and Detroit (win#9) - all of them on the road. His season record is 4-2.
 
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Make it 15 baby!

Pickard didn't have a lot of hard saves, but still confident and a shutout!

Hyman with his 29th (on pace for 55).

GEvfNCQbYAAQ4hS

https://twitter.com/x/status/1750738303236853882
 
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