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 Jakob Silfverberg 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,” 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 http://www.officialducks.com/authentic-adidas-john-gibson-jersey , 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, 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 Authentic Josh Manson Jersey ,” 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. DENVER (AP) Nashville pulled off another comeback victory to remain the NHL’s hottest team.Filip Forsberg scored at 1:07 of overtime and the Predators matched the franchise record with their eighth straight victory, beating the Colorado Avalanche 4-3 on Sunday. They completed a 4-0 trip, winning the last two in overtime.”We’ve proven to ourselves that we can come back,” Forsberg said. ”Getting four out of four wins on the road is ridiculous right now. But at the same time we can’t get too high. We have to keep grinding and winning the games.”Nashville has won nine straight against Colorado, including three this season.But Avalanche coach Jared Bednar said he still liked a lot of what he saw from his players in their latest effort against the Predators.”I liked the way we played,” Bednar said. ”I thought we got a little better as the game went on. It was a pretty good all-around effort from our group. Pretty tight contest. They catch a break at the end and tie it up and end up getting the extra point.”Nashville’s Ryan Ellis tied it with 1:06 left in regulation with goalie Pekka Rinne off for an extra attacker.”It’s 6 on 5 where we talk about getting pucks to the net,” Ellis said. ”I had one shot that got stopped by the goalie and the next shot we had traffic in front of him and it got in.”The Predators carried the momentum into overtime, when Forsberg charged down the ice and put in the winner with a shot from the side that got past goalie Semyon Varlamov.”The confidence level of our team is reaIly hard. It shows our character Ondrej Kase Jersey , knowing there is no giving up,” Rinne said.Nathan MacKinnon helped set up Colorado’s first lead of the game with a cross-ice pass to Mikko Rantanen, whose one-timer from the right circle to beat Rinne with 5:38 left in the third period.Colorado tied it at 2 at 4:38 of the third when Matt Nieto, at the end of a rush, wristed a shot that Rinne managed to deflect. But the puck stayed around the goal and, as Predators winger Kevin Fiala tried to corral the rebound, his stick nudged the puck into the net.Kyle Turris scored on a power play at 8:08 of the second to put the Predators in front. Turris gathered in a pass from Ellis and wristed a shot from the left circle. The puck went off the glove of goalie Semyon Varlamov before going into the net.Nikita Zadarov had just left the penalty box and skated onto the ice after the Avalanche had killed off his high-sticking infraction. Carl Soderberg picked up a loose puck near the blue line, spotted Zadarov alone along the boards and sent a lead pass to him to ignite a breakaway. Zadarov pulled up at the top of the left circle and unleashed a slap shot that beat Rinne at 12:57 of the first to even the score.Nashville broke on top 3:09 into the game when Austin Watson let fly a shot from the slot that glanced off defenseman Anton Lindholm’s jersey before going into the net.NOTES: Avalanche C Colin Wilson missed the game after leaving Friday night against Minnesota with a head injury. … Five of the Predators’ nine wins in a row against the Avalanche have come in Colorado. … Forsberg has 11 goals in 19 games against Colorado. … The Avalanche saw their three-game winning streak come to a halt. … Nashville also won eight in a row from Oct. 5-25, 2005.UP NEXTPredators: Host Dallas on Tuesday night.Avalanche: At Chicago on Tuesday night.