One of the biggest decisions the Maple Leafs must make this off-season is deciding what to do with Phil Kessel.

Although Kessel is a dynamic offensive player, the Leafs have failed to surround him with talent and the team has wasted Kessel's prime years. There are still good years left for Kessel, but with the Leafs embarking on a full-scale rebuild it's likely those years will go to waste in Toronto. And by the time the Leafs start to rise from the bottom of the league, Kessel will be hitting the decline phase of his career. The wisest decision, therefore, would be to deal him this summer.

But what type of return can the Leafs get for Kessel. Luckily for us, a superstar winger with a massive contract was traded within the past few years and can give us a good idea of what Kessel might fetch in a trade. I'm referring, of course, to Rick Nash.

The Trade that shocked the hockey world happened 25 years ago, ripping Wayne Gretzky from Edmonton and forever making Peter Pocklington a pariah in the City of Champions. But there exists an alternate universe where Wayne Gretzky was never traded from Edmonton—because he was a Winnipeg Jet.

In Peter Gzowski's best-selling classic The Game of Our Lives, which follows the 1980-81 Edmonton Oilers, a team on the brink of becoming a dynasty, Gzowski tells a story of how Wayne Gretzky was almost traded to the Winnipeg Jets instead of the Edmonton Oilers. The deal never happened because Jets owner Michael Gobuty wasn't a bolder backgammon player.

They say in Gotham City you can buy a cop. Well, in Montreal you can buy a referee.

The Bell Centre is one of the loudest buildings in the league. The Montreal faithful pack the 21,000+ arena every night and have been accused of swaying the referees to their side by more than a few angry coaches.

But Montreal can no longer lay claim to the title of "loudest building in the league". That prestigious honour now goes to Winnipeg and the MTS Centre, home of the relocated Jets.

The MTS Centre barely holds over 15,000 and is quite small, which actually works to make the building itself louder. Plus, Winnipeg hasn't had hockey in 15 years, so the fans are just a little pent up.

And in addition to being one of the most wild, passionate buildings in the league, it seems like the fans are actually helping the Jets win games. The popular joke is that Winnipeg is the Jets at home and the Thrashers on the road. It looks like the transformation has something to do with the crowd.

If you’ve read this blog for a while you should already know that I pretty much hate every Canadian team in the NHL, except for Toronto obviously. The short answer as to why is that pretty much everyone else in Canada hates the Leafs, so why shouldn’t I return the sentiment?

But at the same time I am intensely passionate about bringing struggling southern franchises back where they belong: Canada. We need to stop the charade in Phoenix and move them to Quebec.

I, like most people, was extremely happy when the news broke that Winnipeg was getting a team again. And, oddly enough, I will cheer for the Jets this season, despite the whole ‘I hate everyone but Toronto’ thing I have going on.

The reason for cheering on the Jets is that they’re wounded. They’re back in Winnipeg, but their economic viability is somewhat of an unknown. I want to see them do well until they establish that they’re back and aren’t going anywhere.

At the point where they’re safely entrenched in Winnipeg, I can proceed to hate them.

I wrote a post for the Good Point arguing that the Jets have a shot at the playoffs in their first season in Winnipeg. It will make for a nice feel-good story and I’m sure more than a few people will be rooting for the little guys.

Of course if it comes down to Winnipeg and Toronto for the final playoff spot they can contract the Jets for all I care. I’m beginning to forget what the playoffs are actually like, so a heart-warming Jets story will leave me nothing but cold if it costs Toronto a chance at Lord Stanley’s mug.

After years of trouble in Phoenix, accompanied by constant rumours of relocation, Winnipeg will finally get an NHL team back, although it isn’t the one they were expecting. According to reports, True North Sports – the group which owns and operates the Manitoba Moose and the MTS Centre – are close to completing a deal for the Atlanta Thrashers, which would subsequently be moved to Winnipeg. In fact, the highly reputable Stephen Brunt is reporting that the deal is done. As in complete. Brunt indicates the league will announce the deal on Tuesday. TSN and CBC are both reporting the deal is close – but not done. Regardless, it appears like a matter of when, not if the Thrashers move.

Recently, the University of Toronto’s Mowat Centre published an article that argued that Canada could support six more teams, increasing the total to 12. The paper, written by Tony Keller and Neville McGuire, is an extremely interesting read that makes a compelling argument that Canada has only six teams because of politics, not feasibility, and certainly not demand.

The paper suggests that Toronto, Montreal, and Vancouver can all support another NHL franchise, provided that the new teams share the existing NHL arenas in each city. In addition to another franchise in Toronto, Southern Ontario can support another team in Hamilton, Kitchener-Waterloo, or London. Finally, both Quebec and Winnipeg can support a team – a notion being discussed endlessly with the precarious settlement of both the Phoenix Coyotes and Atlanta Thrashers.

The paper argues that because the NHL largely derives their profits from ticket sales and concessions (in contrast to a league like the NFL which has a lucrative television contract), having a small market that generates big interest in hockey is much more valuable than a large market with less interest. Winnipeg > Phoenix.

The paper uses Edmonton as a benchmark because it is one of the smallest markets in the NHL and houses the smallest arena in the NHL. However, because of the fanatical nature of Edmonton fans, the Oilers are not only able to survive, but strive. According to Keller and McGuire, ticket and in-arena concession revenue makes up approximately 50-75% of a team’s total revenue; in 2007-2008, the Oilers generated approximately $1.2 million per home game from tickets alone.

I highly recommend reading the entire article. Based on the variables examined in the paper, it is clear that Canada can support an additional six teams. The demand is evidently there. And, for the most part, so is the infrastructure. However, the authors do not look at other important variables when examining each city's viability. When they do mention certain drawbacks they do not expand on them and leave them largely ignored. The authors freely admit this stating that their objective was to discover the cities that the free market would support, not what the NHL would allow.

I believe the amount of Canadian teams in the NHL needs to increase, but there could be major repercussions to expanding the NHL’s presence in Canada.

Stop me if you've heard this before: the Phoenix Coyotes are having trouble drawing fans. This isn't news considering the team has incurred losses totalling several hundred million dollars since their move from Winnipeg, causing the team to file for bankruptcy in 2009. Currently, the league owns to the Coyotes, which is unlikely to change anytime soon. Every time a potential new owner is seemingly set to give the franchise a sense of stability there's a snag that keeps the Coyotes' status in the desert in jeopardy. Currently, it's a battle between the city of Glendale and the Goldwater Institute that leaves Matthew Hulsizer's bid as owner tenuous.

There's also trouble in Atlanta with dwindling attendance, which has led some in the Canadian media to descend on the situation as they usually do when a Southern market struggles to support a team. The Thrashers are certainly in less immediate danger of relocation than the Coyotes, but if the team continues to draw attendance numbers that hover around 10,000 the same question will be asked: is it time to bring a team back to Canada?

The upcoming NHL board of governors meetings, taking place in sunny Pebble Beach on Tuesday and Wednesday, will give the NHL owners a break from their teams to discuss a litany of issues concerning the league. ESPN’s Pierre LeBrun reports that the main discussion will revolve around the potential sale of the NHL-funded Phoenix Coyotes to the Ice Edge investment group. Interestingly, LeBrun also speculates that discussion surrounding the Coyotes sale will inevitably lead to discussion on the viability of other markets, particularly Quebec City, Winnipeg, and Toronto.