Toronto Maple Leafs Next Rivals: 3 Potential Expansion Cities

If the Toronto Maple Leafs ever want the salary cap to rise, they should be telling the National Hockey League to add another franchise or two.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are one of the oldest hockey teams in NHL history, but it’s time for some fresh franchises.

In recent years, we’ve already seen how much of an impact a new franchise brings to the NHL and to that city.

For example, when Las Vegas arrived, they made the Stanley Cup Finals in their first year of existence and their in-game experience is one of the best in the league. Many thought that nobody would show up to a game in Vegas, but boy, were they ever wrong.

The same thing can be said about Winnipeg.

Having lost an NHL franchise in the 1990s due to financial issues, Winnipeg was able to take over the struggling Atlanta Thrashers and re-brand the team back to the Jets.

Since the NHL is in such a tough situation right now, the easiest way to make money is to bring in a new NHL franchise.

It cost the Seattle team $650 million just to enter the NHL, so you’d have to expect that number would only rise for the next franchise to be established.

After Seattle arrives, the NHL would now have 32 franchises, so to make it even, it always makes sense to add two more teams instead of one. With that being said, if the NHL up-charged their expansion fee, we could be looking at roughly a $1.5 billion fee combined for two new teams to enter the league.

If you split that money equally, that’s an extra $46.875 million per team, which would be so important in a world where there may not be fans for two years.

Let’s take a look at three potential cities that would be perfect for expansion: