TheAud

He is a rookie: Rookie Qualifications To be considered a rookie, a player must not have played in more than 25 NHL games in any preceding seasons, nor in six or more NHL games in each of any two preceding seasons. Any player at least 26 years of age (by September 15th of that season) is not considered a rookie.

However "Small market" isn't based on population alone. Buffalo is a very small market city compared with Phoenix, Tampa, Charlotte, etc but is effectively a large market team when it comes to hockey. Canadian cities the same size or even smaller than Buffalo might be large market, or at least mid-market, cities in terms of hockey given the fanaticism of the population regarding hockey. I think the fundamental question is whether hockey is better served expanding in places where it is revered or at least strongly followed as a dominant regional sport, or whether it should continue to expand to large markets where it can hope for a small but potentially proftiable niche position among football, basketball, baseball or whatever. The Atlanta/Calgary and Winnipeg/Phoenix-Atlanta/Winnipeg chain of franchise moves would seem to be case studies for the former, but who knows.

Fascinating article on this topic from Nate Silver over 1 year ago in NY Times: http://fivethirtyeight.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/05/31/why-cant-canada-win-the-stanley-cup/?_php=true&_type=blogs&_r=0 The summary of where he thinks the NHL could profitably expand are (in priority order): 1) Toronto (2 additional teams) 2) Montreal (additional team) 3) Vancouver (additional team) 4) Quebec City In other words, Canada. Plenty of things to potentially pick at in the analysis but it certainly makes interesting points too. Las Vegas certainly looks like a bad idea. Seattle is a lot more viable than Vegas but still not a great idea unless you get some of the potential Vancouver 2nd team fans in the process (since a 2nd team in Vancouver isn't going to happen).