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POLL RESULTS: Hockey fans realistic about Seattle NHL team

Published 9:36 am Friday, June 1, 2018

By Nick Patterson

It seems that local hockey fans aren’t letting the exploits by the Vegas Golden Knights get into their heads too much.

This week’s Seattle Sidelines poll asked readers’ expectations for a possible NHL expansion team in Seattle. This came in the wake of Vegas’ dream expansion season, in which the Golden Knights won the Pacific Division, the Western Conference and are now playing the Washington Capitals in the Stanley Cup finals.

Given the liberal expansion-draft rules Vegas was given — and that have been promised to a prospective Seattle expansion franchise — I asked readers how they thought a Seattle expansion team would fare in its first season. Here’s what you had to say:


Add the two polls together and the greatest amount of votes were for a .500 team, which received 41 percent of the vote. A nearly equal amount voted for a top-half team (27 percent) and a bottom feeder (26 percent), while a mere 6 percent said they thought the Seattle team would mirror Vegas’ success.

This result is a little surprising to me. That’s because I spent much of April and May embedded in the local hockey-watching community while the Everett Silvertips made their run to the WHL championship series, and at least anecdotally I can say there was a palpable excitement over what Vegas was doing, specifically in tying Vegas’ achievements to a possible Seattle expansion franchise.

However, the results of this poll suggest while the excitement may be real, fans are still able to be realistic with their expectations. As I outlined in this column, there’s reasons why a Seattle expansion franchise, even if given the same expansion-draft rules as Vegas, will have a difficult time emulating the success of the Golden Knights. It seems the majority of local hockey fans agree.

While Seattle has yet to receive a guarantee of an NHL expansion franchise, it’s reached the point where it’s all but inevitable. If everything goes according to plan, the Seattle team will join the NHL in 2020 while playing in a renovated KeyArena.

And at least according to this poll, if the team can be about .500 the fans will be satisfied.

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