Adam Proteau discusses the NHL commissioner's comments on expansion, the Arizona Coyotes' pursuit of arena land and Nikita Kucherov's All-Star Skills performance.gary

Welcome to an NHL all-star break version of Screen Shots, an ongoing THN.com feature in which we tackle a few hockey topics, and analyze them in shorter paragraphs. On to it, we go:

The Arizona Coyotes posted to X (formerly Twitter) Friday night, ostensibly confirming the franchise’s intent to purchase Arizona state land on which to build an NHL-caliber arena. The initial report from ABC15 Arizona noted that multiple sites are under consideration to host the new building, a necessity if the Yotes are going to avoid being relocated to a different city. But not all the news was positive for the organization, as NHL Players’ Association executive director Marty Walsh spoke out about the lack of communication between the players’ union and Coyotes ownership.

“I’m extremely disappointed in the ownership of Arizona, the president of Arizona,” Walsh said at a press conference on Friday. “They have not reached out to the PA to talk about what the situation in Arizona is. 

“We have a team in Arizona that doesn't seem interested in having a conversation with the union that represents the players that play on that team. Unfortunately we have had two unofficial deadlines to come up with some movement and we have gone past both of those, so I’m interested to see what the owners of Arizona have on their minds. It’s not just about buying a piece of land, you can buy a piece of land, but how long will it take you to permit the land – do you need a referendum, do you need to mediate the land? There are lots of questions.”

NHL commissioner Gary Bettman was notably more optimistic than Walsh was, but Walsh’s questions about the length of time all this arena work will take are fair comments. The Coyotes are far from out of the woods when it comes to confidently moving operations to a permanent new Arizona home. Relocation may not be a probability, but it is a possibility. We know potential new owners are champing at the bit to relocate to their market, so the Coyotes have to move relatively quickly to avoid that fate. Coyotes fans are closer to breathing easy about the future of their favorite team, but we’re not there yet.

Bettman spoke at the Friday press conference regarding NHL expansion, and was it us, or did he seem less coy about the possibility of adding new teams to the league? 

Bettman mentioned a slew of potential new team markets, including Houston, Salt Lake City, Atlanta, Kansas City, Cincinnati and…Omaha, Nebraska?! No offense to Omaha residents, but that seems like a remote possibility at best. Then let’s factor in Quebec City as well, so we’d still have six cities in the hunt for a new team. That should drive up the bidding war for an expansion team franchise fee to at or near the $1-billion level. And that will make Bettman’s bosses, the NHL team owners, very happy.

Expansion isn’t a cure-all for every issue the NHL is dealing with, but it sure does take up a ton of positive attention, and the league needs every bit of that it can get. That, in our humble opinion, is why Bettman avoided his usual dismissal of expansion talk. Many hockey observers see expansion as too lucrative an option for him and the owners to turn down. Now, it’s about figuring out the right time to announce it.

(And one more thing: if Omaha winds up getting an NHL team before Quebec City gets one, there will be major unrest in La Belle Province.)

Finally, it was disheartening to see Tampa Bay Lightning Nikita Kucherov's disappointing effort in the NHL’s All-Star Skills competition Friday night. We understand he's a competitor and may need that competitive energy to thrive in actual games, but when you look as disinterested as he did going through the motions in the skills event, it doesn't do the event or himself any favors.

Part of the job of NHLers is to sell the game, and that’s not what Kucherov did Friday. He seemed on the verge of being out-and-out sullen, and that’s not what you want to see at a lighthearted event like the All-Star Game. There’s no question Kucherov is an otherworldly talent, but he also needs to be a better salesman.