- Bill Daly says the NHL still views Arizona as a market that would work
- Phoenix is now being talked about alongside Houston, Austin and Atlanta
- Read below for what the Valley still has to solve before an expansion bid is real
Arizona is not off the NHL’s list.
NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly sat down with Craig Morgan of AZ Hockey Insider to talk about where the Phoenix area stands in the expansion race, and he did not close the door on a return. Daly was asked directly about the state of the Valley’s bid.
“I don’t think there’s any news necessarily. You’re aware and we’re aware, more importantly, that there’s interest among a number of people in Arizona to bring an NHL franchise back to the Phoenix area. I think we’ve been open and honest about the fact that given the right circumstances, we continue to think Arizona would be a good market for an NHL team and a successful market for an NHL team.”
Daly added that the league hopes a return “remains possible,” while stopping short of saying anything has reached the executive committee. Morgan framed the whole thing as a possible three-team race, with Phoenix now in the conversation next to Houston and Austin and a quieter Atlanta bid.
The Coyotes played their last game in the desert on April 17, 2024, a home date against Edmonton at Mullett Arena. The team never found land for a real building after the Glendale lease ran out, and Ryan Smith’s group bought the hockey operations for $1.2 billion and moved them to Salt Lake City, where they now play as the Utah Mammoth.
The franchise itself was never killed off. It sits inactive on the league’s books, which is the whole reason a Phoenix comeback keeps getting floated.
Take a look back at how that final night in Tempe went:
Local groundwork started up again in January 2025, when Maricopa County Board of Supervisors chair Tom Galvin put together a committee of business and political figures aimed at getting a team back. Gary Bettman met with Galvin over Zoom before that announcement, and Morgan reported earlier this month that the two talked again this summer.
An arena is still the piece nobody in the Valley has. Daly also went over the threat of another referendum with Morgan, which is what sank the Tempe plan in 2023.
The price of admission has moved too. Elliotte Friedman said last October that the next expansion fee could hit $2 billion, well past the $650 million Seattle paid and the $500 million Vegas paid. Any group in Phoenix, Houston or Quebec City is bidding into a different market than the last two rounds.
Morgan said his full expansion piece is turning into a three-part series that runs in September.
