from Damien Cox of the Toronto Star,

The expansion Vegas Golden Knights, blessed with ambitious ownership and a smart, experienced executive, used the expansion draft process to acquire enough good players that — incredibly — the team went to the Stanley Cup Final in its first year.

This was, of course, a terrible indictment of just how watered down the league had become under Gary Bettman. But that barn door was opened years ago. Nowadays, the hockey media in generally has become so pro-NHL, so pro-grow-and-promote-the-game, that the introduction of the Kraken is generally being treated as if it is some great achievement by the NHL, as if a 32nd team will enhance the league in ways no one could possibly have imagined.

It won’t. The television numbers remain microscopic in the U.S., and going from NBC back to ESPN isn’t going to change that. This was about stuffing $650 million (U.S.) into the jeans of existing owners, and that money has come in handy over the past 18 months as the league has lost hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions of dollars, during the pandemic. The only team that will benefit directly is Vancouver, which finally has a true geographical rival. So if the objective of this expansion was to help the Canucks, then it’s a job well done.

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