<Tr> <Th> Expansion team (s) </Th> <Td> Vegas Golden Knights </Td> </Tr> <Tr> <Td_colspan="2"> NHL Expansion and Dispersal Drafts ← 2000 </Td> </Tr> <P> The 2017 NHL Expansion Draft was an expansion draft conducted by the National Hockey League on June 18--20, 2017 to fill the roster of the league's expansion team for the 2017--18 season, the Vegas Golden Knights . The team's selections were announced on June 21 during the NHL Awards ceremony at T - Mobile Arena . </P> <P> In the offseason before the 2015--16 NHL season, the league opened a window for ownership groups to bid for expansion teams for the first time since 2000 . Two ownership groups submitted bids to the league, one each from Las Vegas and Quebec City . If chosen, this would be the first "Big Four" major professional sports league to place a franchise in Las Vegas (not counting the city's short - lived and ill - fated football teams in the Canadian Football League and XFL, who played in 1994 and 2001 respectively), but the NHL has had a limited presence in the city with annual preseason games, beginning with an outdoor game in 1991 and the Frozen Fury series held each year since 1997 . Quebec City was previously home of the Quebec Nordiques, a team that had moved in 1995 and became the Colorado Avalanche; it has hosted occasional preseason games since that time, and has constructed a new ice hockey arena to receive a potential NHL team . Due to political delays, a bid was not submitted from Seattle despite the presence of three different ownership groups publicly campaigning to start an NHL team; a number of other potential expansion sites, such as Kansas City and Saskatchewan, declined to place bids because of cost concerns . </P>

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