I would venture to guess all the Canadian teams plus the Bruins, Flyers, and Rangers. That would make it more than 8 teams though.
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Bruins for sure. Forgot about them. Jacobs is pretty high profile which usually means he's one of the big dogs. I don't think Calgary, Edmonton, Ottawa, or even Winnipeg are up there. They're still considered small market.
Detroit and Pittsburgh perhaps? Maybe Washington?
I'm sure you can look at any market that has a winning team and say "there is something there". Atlanta was a playoff team only once in the same time span so how is that considered more of a failure than CBUS or the Florida teams? IMO, the "sunbelt" experiment has been an utter failure...this includes Phoenix. In the 90s the NHL simply expanded too fast.....
jom