NHL to Expand to 31 Teams, Next Up: Las Vegas

Well, there's no immediate impact to the hockey pool, but there will be some impact, starting in the 2018 season, when there will be one more roster to choose from.  There will be a new team in Las Vegas, subject to get started in the 2018 season and preparations will get started right away, now that the rubber stamps have been inked and slammed down on the proclamations.

The first benefit to us poolies is that we'll have another starting goalie to choose from on all the rosters, which is truly a good thing for us.  So, the team that begins play won't exactly be climbing the standings too quickly in year number one, but with the way that the expansion draft should work, they won't be too far off and they will have a decent shot at some quality talent in the 2017 entry draft as well.

There are going to be some players that will certainly benefit from some added ice-time, moving to a team that will offer added minutes to their newly-acquired depth.  The impact on other teams around the league won't be too drastic, as the expansion draft will only cost them one player, offering up a new job to a player in their system, which offers more options for us poolies, adding another chance here and there for a diamond in the rough.

It's far too early to speculate how everything will play out, because there will be an entire season for a lot of players to audition for their spots on the protected players list, while those who are not protected will be agonized over, before anything gets done.  Nevertheless, there will be plenty of coverage and guessing and all that crap, as we move through the 2017 season.

Personally, I think these are some exciting times, as the league expands, it certainly does make the hockey pool a little bit more exciting moving forward.  More players allows for more teams in the next few years and maybe a few less complaints about how many goalies we'll take in a given year.

If you're going to try and figure out how things are going to pan out, here is a brief list of the new rules that will be applied to the expansion draft next year, around this time.  I think there will be some work done on one of my other blogs, working on some scenarios, because there will be some points in time where I'll be bored, between now and then.