One player to keep an eye on for a potential Nordiques revival

Late last week, Quebec Premier Francois Legault told RDS that his government will have meetings with the NHL to discuss the possibility of the Nordiques returning.

Those rumours of a possible revival continued to circle throughout Friday and Saturday. On the '32 Thoughts' segment on Hockey Night in Canada, Jeff Marek said that he spoke with NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly who said that there are no meeting planned between the two sides at this time.

"Yes, we did talk over the phone. No, we don't have any meetings planned right now. Yes, we are always interested in meeting and talking but, quote, 'We are obviously pleased with what we have right now.' We'll see where this thing heads." Bill Daly told Jeff Marek.

Now hypothetically speaking, if the Nordiques return in the not-so-distant future, one name that could pull on their sweater is Patrice Bergeron, a native of L'Ancienne Lorette, which is a suburb of Quebec City.

The 36-year-old grew up a Nordiques fan and in the past has talked about potentially playing against them if they ever return to the NHL.

"I'm going to play for the Bruins against them, but just to be playing the Nordiques there'd be a special meaning to it," said Bergeron, when asked about it as a possibility in the recent past. "Just the fact that I am from there, it's my hometown. I could play in front of my family. I grew up watching the Nordiques and playing against them would be special."

It's extremely hard to envision Patrice Bergeron wearing anything else than the black and gold in Boston, but he's in the final year of his contract and will become an unrestricted free agent in July 2022.

The timing of Quebec's potential return would have to happen pretty quick in order to see Bergeron playing for them, as he's likely nearing the end of his Hall-of-Fame career. At 36, he still has a few years ahead of him, but one possibility to get the Nordiques back as quickly as possibly could be via relocation of the Arizona Coyotes.

Arizona is going through a bit of a rough time both on and off the ice. Off the ice, the team is looking for a new arena, as the City of Glendale has told the Coyotes that they need to vacate Gila River Arena by June 30th 2022. The team has already been searching the state for their new home, with a $1.7 billion development proposed for the City of Tempe. An arena would take years to build, and earlier this week, Chris Johnston of TSN reported that the Coyotes may have to temporarily play at Chase Field, home of the MLB's Arizona Diamondbacks.

Could we see the NHL finally throw in the towel and relocate the Coyotes to Quebec? It would bring a lot of joy to hockey fans in Quebec, but the NHL seems content on where they are now and want to make things work in the desert.

All of this is purely speculative, but it would be pretty sweet to see Patrice Bergeron pull on the Nordiques jersey to finish off his Hall-of-Fame career.

Source: Bergeron/Quebec Nordiques - Boston Hockey Now.

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