Gary Bettman doesn't seem like the betting type.
He seems like the kind of guy who doesn't like anything but an absolute, stone-cold, one hundred percent lock.
He's the guy who strolls into a casino, peers around the floor at all the lights and colors and sounds, smirks, and heads off to the pool to catch some sun.
That's why it's not surprising that he's been doing his best to slow play talk of a potential expansion - or relocation - team in Las Vegas, Nevada. Not necessarily because he doesn't believe it's going to happen, but because he doesn't want to say anything before it's an absolute certainty.
Bettman and the league, though, recently gave permission to billionaire William Foley to attempt to conduct a season's-ticket drive in Vegas as a gauge of potential hockey interest.
That, and other signs, has some in the hockey world operating as if a Las Vegas franchise is a done deal.
"The league's confidence has never been higher, and with their costs controlled better than ever now, it's not a secret they've felt good about Vegas for months," a prominent NHL agent told Adam Proteau of TheHockeyNews.com. "Look, you've got a billionaire prepared to pay the league's asking price (rumored by the New York Post to be in the area of $400 million) for the team and an arena that's privately financed and is going in whether the NHL is going there or not. The risk for the league is next to nothing at the moment, but there are still enough skeptics about the demographics that (league management) felt this was a first step they had to take to address the doubt. But this is a situation where, if you're asking the question publicly, you probably have a good idea of what the answer will be. Otherwise, you don't ask the question."
It sounds like, whether Bettman is ready to admit it or not, it's only a matter of time before gruff, semi-toothless Russian and Canadian hockey players are wandering the glamorous, glitzy streets of their home city of Las Vegas.
