from Adam Vingan of The Tennessean,

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman is in Nashville on Friday to attend Game 2 of the Predators' first-round series against the Blackhawks. Before the game, he discussed Nashville's impact on the NHL and league-wide topics.

On if it was good for the league to have a "non-traditional" market like Nashville have significant on-ice success:

"I'm not sure i'm comfortable any longer with the term 'non-traditional.' Fact is there are some cities that have franchises longer, but Nashville has built its own tradition, its own history. This team is very well-owned by Tom Cigarran and his partners. The team on the ice has been built the right way by David Poile, who's one of the preeminent general managers. And we're in a place as a league where we have incredible competitive balance, best in our history, probably the best in all of sports. We've got 20 teams that could have won the Stanley Cup in all probability and four of them didn't even make the playoffs.

And as we sit here at the very beginnings of the first round, the Stanley Cup is up for grabs and that's great news for fans. It's great news for fans in Nashville as there are high expectations and a team that performed extraordinarily well in the regular season."

On Las Vegas's pursuit of an NHL franchise:

"Mr.(Bill) Foley, who's the person interested in having an NHL franchise in Las Vegas, wanted to assess the strength of the fan base, potential fan base in Las Vegas. Las Vegas in that regard is at least perceived to be an unusual market. He began his ticket drive and while I'm not prepared to announce the results, because it's actually still ongoing, it has been very successful to date."

more