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SALT LAKE CITY — The NHL is preparing for a potential team in Salt Lake City next season.
The NHL is drafting two versions of the schedule for the 2024-25 season, according to multiple reports, one with the Coyotes playing in Arizona and another with the franchise moving to Salt Lake City.
The league is skeptical of the Coyotes' latest effort to build a new arena for the franchise in Arizona, according to reports.
On June 27, the Coyotes will bid on a parcel of land in the hopes of finally securing a site for a new arena. If they do win the auction, Coyotes president Xavier Gutierrez said the team plans to start construction in the second quarter of 2025.
Gutierrez told ESPN that "we hope to drop the puck in the fall of 2027," adding that the project will be completed without taxpayer money.
However, Scottsdale mayor David Ortega, who represents a city close to where the state land is located, blasted the proposed plan earlier this week.
"The proposed Phoenix version, bordering Scottsdale, was presented without mention of market demand for a new entertainment venue disguised as a hockey arena, or congested highway access or questionable arena zoning entitlement," he wrote in a statement, which was obtained by KPNX. "The glitzy proposal was portrayed as the last gasp to keep hockey in Arizona."
The Coyotes' plans have been foiled before. The franchise's arena project in Tempe was defeated by a public vote in May 2023, and the team currently plays its home games at Arizona Mullett Arena, a 5,000-seat facility on the campus of Arizona State University. The team has been searching for a permanent home since their former owner took the franchise into bankruptcy in 2009.
In the meantime, Jazz owner Ryan Smith has put together a compelling bid for the league to move to Utah. The league has prepared a backup option to sell the Coyotes to Smith in a relocation move to Salt Lake City, according to ESPN. An announcement of such a move could come as soon as this month.
In January, Smith Entertainment Group requested the NHL to start an expansion process for a potential Utah franchise.
"SEG envisions a near future where the NHL will thrive in Utah, and we are 100% focused on making this happen as soon as possible," Smith said at the time.
The group made it clear, though, that they were ready to host a team as soon as next season if a team was available via relocation. Any relocation move would need to be approved by the NHL's board of governors, though. The board is next scheduled to meet in June but could convene a meeting anytime before that over Zoom.
SEG did not have a comment on Wednesday's reports.
According to ESPN, the move could come via two transactions:
First, the NHL would purchase the Coyotes in a deal believed to be worth around $1 billion. Second, the league would then sell the Coyotes to Smith at a price that could be as high as $1.3 billion. The number represents a sharp increase in franchise values over the last few years — the Seattle Kraken owners paid a $650 million expansion fee in 2021 to join the league. NHL's other 31 owners would split $300 million as part of the sale.
It's also believed that, as part of the deal, Coyote owner Alex Meruelo would be first in line to purchase an NHL expansion team if his efforts to build a stadium are successful.
If the team does move, it will begin playing in Utah at the Delta Center, which Smith owns, while a new stadium is built for both the new hockey team and the Utah Jazz.
Last month, Gov. Spencer Cox signed SB272, setting up a "Capital City Revitalization Zone," paving the way for a new arena to be built downtown.
There are some things yet to be decided, however, and the Salt Lake City Council has not yet voted on whether to adopt a sales tax rate of up to 0.5% in the district to help fund improvements,
Smith Entertainment Group's Mike Maughn said last month that the company expected to spend "billions" of private funds on the new arena and other downtown investments, adding SEG would "cross that bridge when we get there" if the city voted against the tax measure.
More momentum for a team came earlier this week when Smith Entertainment Group launched a survey, asking fans to submit their names for the proposed NHL team.
And that team name may be needed sooner rather than later.
