NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly is talking Texas hockey, and the Dallas Stars might be getting company sooner than fans think.
Daly joined Pierre McGuire and Jimmy Murphy on The Sick Podcast, The Eye Test, Wednesday night, and the conversation turned straight to expansion.
The question on the table was simple. Will Houston end up as the in-state rival for the Stars, or does Austin have a real shot?
Murphy framed it directly on social media before the episode dropped, teasing that Daly discussed the growth of the league and where Texas fits into that plan.
It keeps sounding like Houston will be an in-state rival for #TexasHockey but could it be Austin?
Dallas sits third overall in the league right now at 50-20-12, riding a five-game win streak into the stretch run.
The Stars have posted a plus-52 goal differential this season, the kind of number that makes a second Texas franchise look less like a gamble and more like a business plan writing itself.
The league has already proven nontraditional markets can work. Vegas sits at 39-26-17 for 95 points, and Utah has climbed to 92 points in its first extended run in the desert.
Houston and Austin now in the mix for NHL expansion talk
So which city actually gets the call? Houston has the population, the arena infrastructure conversations, and a media market that dwarfs most current NHL cities.
Austin has the growth story, the tech money, and a fan base that would show up loud from day one.
Here is the honest read. Houston makes more sense on paper, but paper doesn't always win these decisions anymore.
Think of it like the NFL expanding into a city that already has a college football stranglehold. The league doesn't just chase population, it chases energy, and Austin has that in spades.
Daly didn't hand out a timeline, and the podcast clip itself stayed focused on framing the debate rather than settling it.
That's the tension the league office seems comfortable sitting in for now, letting the speculation build instead of shutting it down.
A second Texas team would instantly hand the Stars something they've never had. A geographic rival with real stakes attached to it every single season.
For a franchise riding this kind of form, adding a built-in blue line battle two states away just makes the whole thing sharper.
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Nothing is official. But Daly went out of his way to keep the conversation alive, and that alone tells you the league is further along on this than most fans realize.
Should Houston, not Austin, be the next NHL expansion city in Texas?
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