Top NHL agent Allan Walsh says NHL expansion is coming and reveals the two cities
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Allan Walsh named Houston and Atlanta as the next NHL expansion cities. The league's own agreed term sheet points to a different sequence.
Allan Walsh says NHL expansion is coming to Houston and Atlanta.
The league's own paperwork does not pair those two cities.
Walsh, one of hockey's most prominent player agents, posted it in reply to a thread comparing Houston and Austin media market data.
That context matters more than the Atlanta half, because Austin is the city Houston is actually competing with right now.
The price moved, and hardly anyone said so
On June 23, 2026, Gary Bettman announced the NHL had signed a term sheet giving Dan Friedkin's family exclusive rights to explore a Texas team in Houston or Austin.
Bettman put the total near $3.5 billion covering the expansion fee and a new arena, with roughly six months to choose the market.
The Boston Globe placed the fee portion near $2 billion, which would push something in the range of $50 million to $55 million to each of the 32 existing clubs.
Walsh's own March 2025 post priced expansion at $1.5 billion per team. In sixteen months the entry cost did not drift, it roughly doubled.
Atlanta's obstacle is arithmetic, not history
Bettman confirmed Atlanta and Arizona were discussed at the same Board of Governors meeting, on a separate track, and that neither was as far along as Friedkin.
Vernon Krause's Gathering at South Forsyth has arena plans and an approved permit for a community ice center with an NHL practice facility.
The complication is that metro Atlanta carries two competing ownership groups, splitting one market's pitch in front of owners now pricing entry above $3 billion.
Bettman also said symmetry should not govern expansion, and that a 33rd team does not have to arrive alongside a 34th.
Two franchises arriving apart also means two expansion drafts, and two rounds of protected lists for all 32 general managers.
Walsh may well be right that both cities land teams.
The paperwork simply does not say they land together.
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