New American City Emerging As Favorite For Next NHL Team

With NHL expansion being widely successful over recent years, new cities are looking into the possibility of having an NHL franchise come to town. There is also a possibility of a franchise such as the Arizona Coyotes relocating as well.

One of the newest cities to express interest is Sacramento. Sacramento, which is a California city, seems sort of impractical for a new franchise especially considering that there are three other California NHL teams (LA Kings, Anaheim Ducks, and San Jose Sharks).

The owner of the Sacramento Kings, Vivek Ranadivé, who is currently looking to purchase the Ottawa Senators, has got NHL insiders and executives wondering if Sacramento could be a hockey market.

With there already being an arena that could seat over 17,000 people, it would take some changes to the infrastructure to put a hockey rink in the arena but this is not a terribly difficult task given how there are many arenas that house NHL and NBA teams.

One major question that needs to be brought up is the viability of having more American teams introduced before other Canadian markets like Quebec get a team. It is clear that Quebec could support an NHL team but it appears that they are on the back burner because of U.S. markets such as Sacramento or Salt Lake City.

With the success for the Kraken and Golden Knights, it makes sense how the NHL would want to further expand but they must take history into account before making too many brash decisions.