[getbak]

Originally Posted by calgarygeologist

Well there is this happening so I'm assuming it is part of some sort of market testing. Why else would they be hosting games?

https://www.nhl.com/kings/news/la-ki...ty/c-325331344

As it says in that story, the Kings have been doing a "destination" game during the preseason almost every year since the late 90s. They used to play (usually the Avs) in Vegas every year, but that's no longer an option.

There really aren't any other big cities in the west that would work that don't already have an NHL team or an affiliated team. Portland is the only other one, but it's pretty close to Seattle. Sacramento and San Francisco are both close to San Jose (and I don't know if either of their new arenas even have an ice plant). San Diego is the home of the Ducks' AHL team.

Vegas and Denver are both closer to SLC than LA is, but it's still pretty far from both as well (I believe SLC is in the Vegas tv region).

For the Kings, it was probably either shift their "destination" game to Salt Lake or cancel it, so they moved it to Utah.



BTW, here's a photo from this year's game that shows the "canyon" effect with the retracted seats that I mentioned before...