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Is European Expansion the Wave of NHL's Long-Term Future? |
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NHL Considering Expansion into Europe
Talked to a source today who finally gave me the go-ahead to mention something that has been kicking around the NHL since last December during the lockout: European expansion.
With the KHL's growing expansion across Europe, don't be surprised if the NHL moves into Europe in the next 5 years as well. There is a plan on the table that would eventually put an 8 team division into Europe.
"There are several iterations being kicked around, but the one which has grown the most legs would put 2 teams in Sweden, 1 in Finland, 2 in Switzerland, 1 Czech team, 1 German team, and 1 Slovak team.
But how would this work? Especially considering there are already established teams playing in these cities?
Again, there are several concepts being kicked around, but as opposed to the KHL which (mostly) wants to establish new franchises in these countries, the NHL has an interesting and much more integrated concept.
How it would work is teams in their current leagues would still play in their current leagues, but their schedules would be shortened and a schedule including 8 NHL games versus NHL teams would be added.
Four home games and four away games would be the initial target but that number could eventually be increased to 16 games if all goes well. The determination of who gets to play the NHL teams would be based on the previous year's results. For example, the two finalists in the Swedish Hockey League -- formerly Elitserien -- would have their SHL schedule decreased by a 4-8 games and the NHL games added. (Under the current idea, the internal SHL standings would somehow be prorated and would not include the NHL game results). In countries with one participating team, the previous year's champion would get to play the NHL Teams.
I know this sounds confusing, but it gets even better!
The team with the best record versus NHL teams would then make the actual Stanley Cup playoffs and be placed in the 4th position in one of the two conferences on a rotating basis. In other words, one year they would be the 4th team in the East, the next year 4th in the West. In the current NHL Conference that loses the 4th spot, a best-of-three qualification series would be played between the 8th vs. 9th place teams.
In keeping the current European hockey calendar, the participating teams in Europe would play their own league playoffs first before the Stanley Cup playoffs (which overlap with the IIHF World Championships) get started.
To be honest, I find it all a bit overwhelming. To get some perspective, I asked Bill Meltzer, the North American hockey writer with the most knowledge of the European leagues I have ever met, to help collaborate on this blog. I specifically asked him for insight into the current atmosphere which exist between the KHL, NHL, and European leagues.
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Final Plan Would Need Considerable Changes
By Bill Meltzer
When Eklund described to me the proposed idea for NHL expansion into Europe, my knee-jerk reaction was that I liked the concept of combating KHL expansion in Europe through cooperation with the existing European leagues but that I did not think the plan that was described to me was going to a workable one.
Before I get to the many reasons why this plan is problematic, I will say that the KHL's expansion plan across Europe is aggressive and moving ahead rapidly. The KHL is well on its way to establishing a presence across the continent.
For lack of a better term, the Russian-based league has annexed prominent teams previously associated with Finland's SM-liiga (Jokerit Helsinki, starting in 2014-15), the Slovak Extraliga (Slovan Bratislava) and from the Austrian-dominated EBEL (Croatian team Medvescak Zagreb). The KHL has placed an expansion team, Lev Praha in Prague; a city represented in the Czech Extraliga by longtime rivals Sparta and Slavia.
The Jokerit situation was an eye-opener to anyone who was not already aware of the scope of the KHL's expansion goals. A group of Russian and Finnish-Russian investors bought Hartwall Arena in Helsinki -- the most state-of-the-art arena in Finland and the home rink of five-time SM-liiga champion and traditional powerhouse Jokerit.
The Jokerit team, which has been one of the deeper-pocket teams (by Finnish hockey standards) for the last two decades and is one of the more recognizable European hockey franchises will play one final season in the SM-liiga in 2013-14. The following season, the club will transfer its membership to the KHL.
The growth and expansion of the KHL has also had nearly as deleterious of an effect on the rosters of teams from other European elite leagues as the long-standing (and not totally unmerited) complaints about NHL teams over-fishing in their waters. The top-spending KHL teams, such as Dynamo, SKA, Salavat Yulaev can blow most other offers out of the water.
For example, nine members of Team Finland's initial registration roster at the 2013 IIHF World Championships played in the KHL last season. The number of SM-liiga players on the opening roster decreased to 12. There were two players apiece from NHL teams and two from the SM-liiga.
Each year, an ever-growing number of Finnish players who return to Europe from stints in the NHL or AHL opt to sign KHL contracts rather than returning to Finland to play in the SM-liiga or sign with a club in other European leagues.
The addition of Jokerit to the KHL is another step toward gradually reducing the power and relevance of the SM-liiga within Europe. The same thing is going on with other leagues, as there has been a lot of talk about a KHL presence in Sweden and other countries that do not yet officially have a team affiliated with the KHL.
The NHL is not always very popular -- or trusted -- among the individual European hockey federations and the owners of teams in the respective leagues. Even so, I think they may have vested interest in working together.
For the NHL, it's all about market share in Europe and NOT about competing for talent. The KHL is a viable alternative for borderline NHL roster players of all nationalities and, increasingly, for prominent Russian NHLers but it's a long way from being an "equal" league in the eyes of most players.
On the flip side, there's a window of opportunity for the KHL to become THE financial power broker for all of European hockey -- essentially turning the other European leagues into a feeder system in a similar manner to the way these leagues are feeder systems for the NHL. The KHL may not want to drive the SHL, SM-liiga or Swiss National League out of business entirely, but they want to become "the NHL of Europe" in terms of holding a clear financial and political power advantage over those circuits. That is why I could see some these leagues finding a partnership of sorts with the NHL to be desirable. The KHL is a much bigger long-term threat to their stability than it ever would be to the NHL.
For the NHL to grow its existing market share in Europe, however, the best bet may be step up its cooperation with the established leagues that have identities and traditions within the targeted countries. I think the chance of success would be MUCH higher if established European clubs had the opportunity to earn NHL participation than it would if the NHL created the "Stockholm Vikings" and "Helsinki Lions" as expansion clubs.
With that said, I don't know how the plan that Ek described to me could work.
For one thing, there is still a significant gap in overall talent between the NHL and other European leagues. In the Swedish league, someone such as Bud Holloway is a top star. In North America, he is a borderline NHL player. Likewise, a team such as defending Swedish champion Skellefteå AIK would not be a playoff caliber club if it played in the NHL. To have essentially the equivalent of an AHL-caliber team playing in the Stanley Cup playoffs does not sound very entertaining nor would the suggested automatic fourth-seeding of European teams likely to be well-received in North America.
How would these teams compete on a more equal footing with NHL clubs and have a snail's prayer at actually competing for a Stanley Cup? They would need to be bankrolled with MUCH bigger budgets to sign NHL caliber players on the same basis as current NHL teams within the NHL's cap floor and ceiling. That kind of budget simply doesn't exist for European teams.
Would the European participants in the NHL be permanent ones? If so, they would need access to participating in the NHL Draft. The idea of all that happening in conjunction with the teams also continuing to primarily compete and collect the revenues available in their domestic league does not feasible to me.
If the teams rotate in and out of NHL participation based on how they do in their domestic league, the NHL would end up with some teams that play in tiny markets with small arenas. The NHL may want teams in Stockholm and Gothenburg, for instance, but the best team at a given time may be located in Karlstad, way up north in Luleå or in tiny Örnsköldvik. It should also be noted that some of these tiny markets often have some of most passionately devoted fan bases in those countries.
But would the NHL actually want to hold regular season and/or playoff games in a locale such as Skellefteå? I'm not sure about that. Likewise, the NHL season-opening games in major European cities -- pitting existing NHL teams against one another -- have not been especially hot tickets. Fans in Europe are accustomed to generally lower prices for tickets.
Additionally, the NHL also needs to be aware of the struggles that past pan-European leagues (such as the Champions League and its predecessors) have had in trying to gain popularity and support. For the most part, the games have drawn poorly and been treated less than enthusiastically by competing players and coaches.
For the most part, fans in Europe have NOT paid to see games pitting club teams from different countries' leagues against one another. Coaches often end up resting their best players in these games and those who do play have often played at something less than maximum effort.
Would a "European division" of the NHL -- with a prize of Stanley Cup playoff participation -- draw increased interest? I think it might, but it's by no means a slam dunk.
Before the NHL can even seriously think about expansion into Europe, they would need to resolve all of the aforementioned issues and more. The logistics and scheduling are rough, especially with the time zone differences. The European rinks would need to be reconfigured to NHL specifications, at least for the playoffs. Moreover, what would the NHLPA think about all of this? How would North American teams that lose out on a playoff spot -- or at least home games in the postseason -- to a European club that played a fraction of an NHL "regular season" schedule react?
I can see some allure behind ideas of increasing the NHL's direct presence in Europe. But until a host of issues are worked out to make it feasible and acceptable to all the parties involved, I don't know how it would be workable in the foreseeable future.
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