As the Commish awaits a ruling from a judge in Arizona it is hard to not draw the parallel to the crazy man in the desert, lost without water, hallucinating and staggering aimlessly.
The Phoenix Coyotes are dead and no matter what Judge Baum rules, that team will be playing elsewhere this time next season. The scene on opening night in Phoenix is going to be disturbing - it will be like the "fans" thought it was Halloween and came dressed as empty seats. The Yotes are in for a blood bath with the NHL underwriting the entire mess.
The best thing that could happen is for Judge Baum to not rule. The league is paying the bills, the players are getting paid and nobody has the right to an appeal. If the good judge just waits this thing out, the NHL owners will break and the NHL will be forced to do a deal with the only person in the whole wide world who seems to have any interest in buying this club, Blackberry Jim. If you figure that the Coyotes have nothing by way of revenue coming in, plus are paying rent to the City of Glendale and the club's payroll is north of $45m with staff and things then between now and April, the owners are going to lose north of $6m per month, maybe more. The NHL simply doesn't have pockets that deep, so they will have to make a credit call to their other owners. At some point they are going to blink.
Everyone knows this is about keeping a team out of the Leafs geographic territory unless the Leafs get a fat pay day. Commish insists no team has a "veto" but Melnyk has already contradicted that - while it might not be in the official rules, the unspoken rules are in play and Melnyk gave the game away. How long before the other owners who are going to get touched by the Commish for keeping his pet project in the desert alive say, "Enough! Do a deal with the Blackberry guy, get him to cover our losses and move that team to Hamilton!" I'd say we're talking by mid-November.
So Judge Baum, there's your answer. You can avoid your ruling being appealed by letting commerce have its way in this dirty little affair. Just do everyone a favour in the meantime and don't let the Commish drink the sand.