from Tony Gallagher of the Vancouver Province,

Donald Fehr is still the executive director after earlier declaring he didn’t think he would be in the job for very long, but if he wants a project to consider, he might start working on what must surely be annoying to the players — the NHL’s persistence in markets where hockey is obviously not working.

We refer here mostly to Florida and Phoenix, and to a slightly lesser extent, Carolina. And if you really wanted to cast the net wide here, New Jersey as well, although their New York market television deal keeps them in solid shape in the revenue game.

Commissioner Gary Bettman is loathe to move any franchises out of what he claims is loyalty to the fans in these cities, and to some degree, that’s laudable. But let’s be clear here, it’s also to make sure he doesn’t have to move these teams into markets they have targeted for expansion. Why move Florida or Phoenix into a ripe city for expansion when there is no way a transfer fee could be anywhere near as high as an expansion fee for the owners, a source of revenue in which the players do not share? They do, however, get the increase in jobs, and like any union, this one is all for increasing its membership and thus their own revenues, so expansion is essentially a win-win for both parties.

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