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Gary Bettman formally announced the addition of Las Vegas into the NHL today, just a couple of hours before the Awards Show in Las Vegas. They will begin playing next season.
Quebec City is being "deferred" until a future time.
In the expansion draft which take place next June, each team will lose one player. The rules for the draft, (which can be found at this link - NHL Expansion Draft Rules) state that Vegas will be allowed to make 30 picks, one from each team.
Who will the Canes lose? Who will they protect? We will have much discussion about that during the next year.
After the press conference, Bettman took some questions and of course he was asked about possible relocation of a team to Quebec City. His answer was that there were no plans for relocation of any team at this time.
There is still going to be plenty of conjecture out there that Quebec City is being held for a team in trouble as a location for a possible move. The reasons given for the "deferment" of their expansion were because of the imbalance in the league, (East and West), and the poor performance of the Canadian dollar versus the USD.
Apparently after the press conference question and answer period, the commissioner was asked directly about the Hurricanes moving and he answered in kind.
Gary Bettman: "The Carolina Hurricanes aren't going anywhere. They're not going anywhere."
Chris Johnston
The Awards Show will start at 7 p.m. locally and hopefully will be interesting. Feel free to use this as an open thread for discussion. We will be back talking about the draft tomorrow.