With a new collective bargaining agreement in place and stable ownership across the board, the prospect of NHL expansion seems more a matter of when than if.

Perhaps that’s why the topic was on the minds of multiple readers when this week’s call for mailbag questions went out. There were also queries on all kinds of different Olympic themes, plus Patrik Laine’s future, the slumping Tampa Bay Lightning, Sidney Crosby trade watch, the NHL’s next big prankster and much more.

As always, thank you for taking the time to read, engage and respond. We got enough good questions for a two-parter.

Let’s go!

With all due respect to players, do you think there is enough talent out there to expand to 34 or 36 NHL teams? I find it hard to envision a world where these new teams come in and are able to put together a roster and not end up like some of the expansion teams of the 1990s and 2000s. — Kurtis H.

As long as the expansion draft rules remain consistent from what the Vegas Golden Knights and Seattle Kraken navigated — and, let’s face it, with a $2 billion price tag, they’re going to — I don’t see any reason why the next round of expansion teams wouldn’t at least have a similar opportunity to be competitive right out of the gate. Plenty of bona fide NHL talent changed hands because of the protection limitations placed on rival clubs when those franchises were born.

The larger question to me, and it’s an extremely difficult one to answer definitively, is to what degree the overall quality of players across the league will be diluted with 50 or 100 new jobs potentially available? My personal belief is that it won’t be too problematic. If anything, the NHL has actually gotten better while expanding from 21 to 32 teams since the early 1990s.

How can a new franchise expansion fee be valued at $2 billion when the Senators were sold for $0.95 billion? — Nic Z.

The easiest way to explain the disparity in valuations is to underline the differences between what’s actually being sold.

In September 2023, the Michael Andlauer group effectively bought the right to operate an NHL team out of Ottawa, one of the smallest markets in the league. In a future expansion scenario, we will almost certainly be talking about a new owner buying the rights to a team in a major metropolitan U.S. market that could carry some business advantages over a smaller market club, such as the Senators.

Put another way: A McDonald’s franchise in Times Square is probably more valuable than one placed in a sleepy town.

How does Finland, with its population of 5ish million, punch above its weight in best-on-best? If a GTA-only team represented Canada, it wouldn’t even sniff the medal round. — Savage T.

Let’s first focus on what makes Finland so successful: Structured team play, deep familiarity among players and strong goaltending. That combination of factors, plus a few high-end difference-makers on the roster, has propelled the country to an outsized amount of success on the world stage.

It’s also worth noting, though, that Finland has an exceptionally high number of registered players on a per-capita basis. For example, they’ve got 68 percent as many junior players as Sweden, according to the IIHF, despite having half of the population. So the success is also being driven by converting many of the country’s best athletes into hockey players.

The one part of your question I’d quibble with is the notion that a Greater Toronto Area team couldn’t find similar success. If you look at the potential roster of players from that region and assume they can steal some lessons from the Finns, I wouldn’t put it past them to punch above their weight class, too!

Who on the Olympic bubble has most made the case for themselves early in the season? — Matt J.

It’s still very early, but from a Team Canada perspective, Winnipeg Jets center Mark Scheifele and Montreal Canadiens center Nick Suzuki have both had strong starts to the season. They were among the best players not included on the 4 Nations roster in February and will want to keep the pedal down as evaluators track progress through the first segment of the schedule.

Another player of note is Tom Wilson, who is producing offensively for the Washington Capitals while playing the rambunctious style that could ultimately secure him a national team invite.

For the Americans, Cole Caufield is filling the net in Montreal so far and making his own push to crack a deep roster.

What are the specific challenges and opportunities of an Olympic year? Which teams should benefit the most/least? — Delorey G.

The compressed NHL schedule to allow for an Olympic break is unquestionably one of the biggest challenges, although that’s something that affects all clubs equally.

Beyond that, I’ve heard team executives lament the challenge for star players to be at their best in the Stanley Cup playoffs after having already ramped up for the Olympics. Naturally, I think you should expect both a physical and emotional letdown for many of those who compete at the Milan Games once they travel back to North America and immediately resume the NHL regular season. The challenge for those players is trying to peak again seven or eight weeks later in Round 1 of the playoffs. In that vein, it wouldn’t be surprising to see contending teams with a limited number of Olympic participants have a smoother season than those who send big numbers to Italy.

If things continue the way they are currently going for Patrik Laine, what does his future look like? — Murray D.

Laine’s immediate future hinges on a lower-body injury, for which the Montreal Canadiens winger sought out a second medical opinion this week. How soon he’s able to get healthy and what level he plays at will have a big say in what happens next in his career.

This is a massive season for Laine and not just because he’s an unrestricted free agent next summer. On some level, the 27-year-old is facing league-wide questions about how effective he can be as an all-around contributor. The booming shot is still there — he scored 20 goals in 52 games for Montreal last season — but the rest of his five-on-five game will dictate how much faith a team will have in signing him to his next NHL contract. Still TBD.

Is age finally catching up to the Tampa Bay Lightning or is this just a slow start? When the offense isn’t firing on all cylinders, this team looks slow and outplayed. Is this the end of an era for the Bolts? — Micah S.

It’s still way too early for me to turn out the lights on an era that’s produced a ton of winning in Tampa. There is very little about the team’s indifferent start or underlying performance that I can point to with any confidence that a turnaround is imminent, but the quality of the roster, coaching staff and front office shouldn’t be overlooked.

These guys are winners, pure and simple. The Lightning have earned some benefit of the doubt in my eyes. Let’s circle back at Thanksgiving.

Hypothetically, if there are multiple goalies on waivers and Team A needs one, can they put in multiple claims with a prioritized list to ensure they get only one? — Alexander H.

This question sent me down a rabbit hole. Anyone who has been involved with a fantasy football league can understand the difficulties of trying to address a specific roster issue while being low on the waiver priority list. As it turns out, the same hurdle would present itself to our hypothetical team in this situation. That is, NHL rules would allow the team to make separate waiver claims on two goaltenders at the same time, but the team would need to be prepared to take on both players in the event no one ahead of them on the priority list grabs one of them.

So the choice is either A) put in just one claim and hope you get the goalie, or B) put in claims on two goalies and risk getting both. There is no option to prioritize one over the other to ensure you land only one. Talk about having to roll the dice.

Can we put the non-state tax issue to bed already? It is but only one piece of a long equation of what constitutes a competitive advantage. — Amir C.

I completely agree with the premise that taxes are only one of a number of potential factors impacting a player’s contractual decisions, but I fear we will not be putting this discussion point to bed any time soon because there are so many Stanley Cup contenders currently playing out of non-tax states.

Whether it’s the Florida Panthers or Tampa Bay Lightning or Dallas Stars or Vegas Golden Knights going on a long playoff run this season, it’s pretty safe to assume this conversation will follow. Plus, there are people working for teams whose opinions I trust who adamantly believe it’s a real advantage for those teams. So, that dynamic or viewpoint probably isn’t disappearing soon.

With Marc-Andre Fleury’s retirement, who is the league’s new Prankster-in-Chief? — Adam B.

I’m in no position to formally anoint a successor to Fleury’s throne, but I can assure you that the art of the prank is alive and well in dressing rooms across the league. For example, San Jose Sharks veteran Ryan Reaves is a well-known prankster, with his specialty being finding creative ways to scare unassuming teammates, as you can see in the Tweets below. Note to Sharks players: Keep your head on a swivel over the next week!

If the Pittsburgh Penguins are out of the playoff race near the trade deadline, what is the percentage likelihood that Sidney Crosby gets traded? — Jeff S.

In that scenario, the percentage would be somewhere above zero, which is why this is likely to remain a storyline despite Crosby’s clear preference to play out his career in Pittsburgh.

Ultimately, it will all come down to his wishes. And if you spoke with Crosby today, he’d probably point out the nice start the Penguins have had to this season. Translation: We’re all in wait-and-see mode with this one.