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ALLENTOWN — The AHL can hardly wait to expand into two new Canadian cities next season.
As for the fate of Binghamton, that will have to wait at least a day.
During his annual All-Star break State of the League Address, AHL president David Andrews said the Senators will have an announcement about their future, and declined to speculate about whether Binghamton will remain a part of, or leave, the AHL.
“I’ll let them handle that,” Andrews said Monday morning at Lehigh Valley’s PPL Center. “The future of hockey in Binghamton will be addressed (Tuesday) during a media event.”
The NHL’s Ottawa Senators recently announced they will move their AHL affiliate out of Binghamton and into Belleville, Ontario next season.
“I think they like bringing their (AHL) team into Canada, having them closer,” Andrews said of the Senators.
Another move on tap for the AHL next season includes the relocation of Montreal’s top farm club from St. John’s to Laval, also located in Canada, presenting the AHL with the opportunity to attract more fans.
“I think the addition of Belleville and Laval will give us some real interesting television opportunities in Canada,” Andrews said. “With Ottawa’s team being in Binghamton, the Canadian TV networks typically weren’t able to pick those games up. With St. John’s being as far from the mainland as it is, it’s always been difficult to do TV from St. John’s. This presents a good opportunity for us.”
Andrews also indicated the AHL, which has 30 solid NHL affiliates among 31 teams, is about 50-50 right now on whether or not it will be able to field add a 31st team in time for next season. But Andrews is confident the AHL will match up perfectly with the NHL by the 2018-19 season.
“That is a work in progress,” he said. “It remains to be seen if we’re a 31 or 30 (AHL league). I don’t think we can’t go past the middle of March without knowing where these NHL teams are going to play. There’s a lot of conversations going on.”
Contrary to popular thought, Andrews said the league will not be going to Kansas City next year unless something drastic happens.
Well, Binghamton may be available to host another affiliate.
“Over the years, unfortunately, the weaker (AHL) markets fell off,” Andrews said. “We’ve had that happen. Binghamton has not been a market that we’ve been concerned about falling off. It’s been fairly steady. The ownership has been steady, the fan support has been steady. Binghamton, they’ve been good partners for a long time. We would support what they want to do and try to do.
“It’s a good, solid AHL market.”
Andrews said his idea to help legislate fighting from the ice through more stringent penalties this season — “I guess it was a little bit of a crusade, on my part,” Andrews admitted — is working.
“We are down 20 percent on fights,” Andrews said. “We’re up on instigating penalties, which is important, because I wanted our officials to distinguish between instigating and fighting. If you look at the changes we made, they were initiated to be a drag on players who primarily fight.
“I wasn’t trying to take fighting out of the game,” Andrews continued. “What we wanted to do was eliminate staged fights and a player who wanted to play in our league just to fight. We had too much of that happening. The pushback from players was minimal. Most of the guys who were involved, including those most affected by it, they’re OK, as long as they know the rules.”