Seattle Times: Seattle not in running to land National Hockey League expansion team

“We’re not ready to make a recommendation”.

“I don’t know if he was expecting me to drop them with him”, Kane said with a laugh.

Foley said he and Bettman speak periodically but he said the conversations are “nondescript”.

The board of governors meeting Saturday morning was a bit thin on substance and included an expansion update that “lasted less than two minutes”, according to one governor. But expansion for the 2017-18 season is still a possibility.

Bettman insisted that Seattle is not in the running to get a team, the paper reported. “Could that be a factor?” He’s had peaks and valleys in his tenure, seeing the league into three separate lockouts, but also helping the league’s profits to soar.

“It is what it is”. He said there’s nothing wrong with the Las Vegas bid and that the league is just being very cautious on the expansion issue. “If someone wanted to give us an application for expansion, we wouldn’t accept it”.

Bettman deflected questions about whether the National Hockey League would change the way fans can vote players into the All-Star game following the fallout from John Scott, the journeyman enforcer, getting a spot in the showcase.

Bettman said that accusation was “not relevant”, as the League welcomed Scott to the All-Star Game. He had a decision to make on whether he wanted to be here.

Bettman said there has been no input from the Quebec City group that they might be reluctant to proceed because of the weakness of the Canadian dollar.

“If the Canadian dollar goes down, that number gets a little softer”, he said.

He indicated it’s premature to consider the impact the Canadian dollar could have on the cap figure, but he doesn’t think it will be major.

“It’s really pretty simple: If you’re injured we assume you’re injured for more than the All-Star Game and that they need to miss a game on either side”. There are issues with travel and insurance expenses that have to be address with the IIHF and the International Olympic Committee, and Bettman said no decision was going to be made on the Games in the near future – especially with the NHL’s focus on its own World Cup of Hockey.

Perhaps that’s why he is willing to stick around as National Hockey League commissioner into the next decade.