The NHL will soon have 32 teams if Seattle is approved as expected next week. An even balance between conferences. A cross-border rival for the Vancouver Canucks in the Pacific Northwest.Surely the league is done growing for a while?Maybe not. Two and a half years after voting to add a team in Las Vegas in what has been a rousing success TJ Brodie Jersey , the NHL has plenty of options when it comes to what’s next. No North American professional sports league has stretched past the number of 32, but no one is ruling it out for the NHL to get there on this continent or beyond.“The leagues adapt, they look around and they make judgments: Are there markets we would like to go into? Can they support the teams at the revenue levels that we need? If we expand too much too fast, do we dilute the talent such that the product suffers? And those are all judgment calls in the end,” NHL Players’ Association executive director Don Fehr said. “Some leagues and owners are more cautious than others. But sooner or later I would like to believe that in the kind of economy we have, all potential avenues will be explored.”Considering the success of the expansion Vegas Golden Knights, Seattle has seemed a no-brainer from the beginning and no one expects anything but approval from the Board of Governors on Tuesday. Seattle would begin play in either 2020 or 2021.“Hockey needs to be and wants to be in those really fast-paced cities that are growing and setting the mark,” Seattle Mayor Jenny Durkan said. “Because if we do well here, it’ll raise all the boats for all the teams.”Vegas already raised the bar for Seattle, which will pay an expansion fee of $650 million — a 30 percent increase over the $500 million that cleared the way for Vegas to begin play last season and far beyond the $45 million the San Jose Sharks paid to enter the league in 1991 to begin a new era of expansion.As soon as the NHL went to 31, getting to 32 was inevitable. As balanced as it might seem, it’s not the end.“Not sure there is any magic about 32 Womens Travis Hamonic Jersey ,” deputy NHL Commissioner Bill Daly said. “Expansion is appropriate when a convincing case can be made that it will be beneficial and add value to the league as a whole.”While Daly was reluctant to address what might be next with the Seattle vote pending, Houston, Quebec City and Toronto have all been touted as possible new homes for an NHL team. Communications company Quebecor applied for an expansion team for Quebec City at the same time as Las Vegas. Billionaire businessman and new Houston Rockets owner Tilman Fertitta has already met with Commissioner Gary Bettman.“Houston’s a big city,” Fehr said. “It’s got a long history with professional sports in North America. You would like to think that sooner or later the NHL will have a team there. When and under what circumstances I’m not going to try and predict.”Andrew Zimbalist, a Smith College economic professor who has written extensively on sports and business, said professional leagues operate much differently from other entities when demand increases. Instead of making more of a product, like a sneaker or beer company might, leagues and teams raise ticket prices or seek new arenas.Expansion, of course, is another way to feed the beast and Zimbalist said a league could get to 40 teams if it is popular enough and the revenue is spread around correctly.Any dream of a 40-team NHL would almost certainly involve European expansion, which Bettman said no one has come up with a viable plan for yet. Amid speculation about basing a single NFL team in London, the NHL would likely need to put a full division in Europe to make any sense. And even that has its obstacles Florida Panthers Hoodies Womens , with New Jersey Devils captain Andy Greene pointing to the drastic time changes and coach John Hynes unsure about the long-distance travel as part of an 82-game season.“When you look at the NHL schedule without going to Europe, it’s a monster,” said Hynes, whose team ended training camp in Switzerland, played an exhibition game there and opened the season in Sweden. “Then you add in European travel and time changes and NHLPA days off for recovery time and it takes its toll.”For now, the NHL will continue to play games in Europe, explore China and increase its regular season to 1,312 games — once Seattle joins the fray. Looking to bounce back from an embarrassing 9-1 loss on home ice to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Thursday, the Calgary Flames will face yet another tough opponent on Saturday.The Flames (5-5-0) will host the defending Stanley Cup champion Washington Capitals (4-3-2) in an afternoon affair at the Scotiabank Saddledome.A day after giving up six goals on 21 shots to the Penguins, goalie Mike Smith met with the media on Friday to talk about the disappointing loss.Article continues below ...“I don’t think anyone can be very proud of what happened (Thursday) night,” said Smith, who has allowed at least four goals in five of his past seven starts. “It was an embarrassment as far as I’m concerned http://www.officialhurricanes.com/authentic-adidas-andrei-svechnikov-jersey , and I think everyone realizes that, but it’s over.“To blame guys would be an easy thing to do, an easy out. The harder thing is to just go and work hard and try to climb out of this thing.”Despite his lackluster performance against the Penguins, Smith will get the chance to redeem himself as he will get the start against the Caps.“It’s pretty early still,” Smith said. “I think if you… start pouting and feel sorry for yourself, it’s going to be a really long year. You have to realize that, put things in perspective and keep working hard and pushing forward.”Calgary coach Bill Peters refused to blame the loss to Pittsburgh on Smith or backup goalie David Rittich, who surrendered three goals on 15 shots in relief. “Once we start playing a little bit better away from the puck — not a little bit better, quite a bit better — and with a commitment to playing defense as a group and as a unit of five, then we can talk about our goaltending,” Peters said. “We’re going to go right back to Smitty (Saturday) and give our group a chance to redeem themselves for that effort (Thursday) night.”Meanwhile, the Capitals will be looking to follow up a disappointing 4-1 loss in Edmonton on Thursday with a better performance against the Flames.“We lost as well Brock McGinn Jersey Kids , so we don’t want to lose two in a row so we’re going to play differently as well,” said reigning Conn Smyth Trophy winner Alexander Ovechkin, who expects the Flames to “come out flying” in front of their hometown fans.Nine games into the season, the Capitals still haven’t found a way to string together back-to-back wins, which is something that defenseman Matt Niskanen and his teammates would like to change.“I think we’re still searching for (consistency),” Niskanen said. “We’ll keep a positive attitude and keep working, but I’d like to see us string a few together here with some better efforts.“The good thing about our group is (something) we’ve kind of developed over the last couple years is we rebound pretty well. We have responses. We’ll look for that in Calgary, but I think we all know we can play better.”Forward Chandler Stephenson echoed Niskanen’s sentiments about the Capitals finding the consistency that helped them win their first Stanley Cup in franchise history.“We’re not panicking in here or pressing the panic button, so it’s just a matter of time,” Stephenson said. “We’ll be right where we want to b