The December 31st deadline has passed so what now?
As the league-set deadline has passed, and nothing is finalized with the sale of the team, the biggest question is will the league extend their deadline to allow Hulsizer even more time to finalize a deal.
I fully expect the league to extend it's deadline though it would be cheating Stillman. The reason being, the league has already seen Hulsizer walk out on a team (Phoenix) and I don't believe they want to see a repeat, and they seem to feel like he belongs in the league as an owner.
If the league decides to extend the deadline I would expect the deal to get done with Hulsizer, but nothing is for certain as we have seen the past few months.
The other option the league has is to decline an extension and give minority owner Tom Stillman a shot.
Stillman has shown he's serious with the addition of the Taylor family and possibly former Blues hall of fame forward Brett Hull to his group and he remains ready to step in should Hulsizer be unable to get a deal struck with Checketts.
Checketts is benefited most by selling the team to Hulsizer and it's believed that he has made it his clear preference to do just that, but he will have no choice but to sell to Stillman should Hulsizer fail.
If Hulsizer does reach a deal, Checketts will remain on board with a 30% stake in the team according to Andy Strickland.
Checketts will not be involved in the hockey part of the business, but an interesting topic came up in one of Strickland's articles that gave a possible explanation as to why Checketts is sticking around.
According to Strickland's sources, Hulsizer will have to make an offer to buy Checkett's share in 4 1/2 years and should Checkett's decline the offer then he will have a chance to find another buyer for the Blues and could ultimately try to buy them back so we could be in the exact same place we are now 5 years down the road according to Strickland.
The ownership saga has been dragging on far too long and hopefully the end is near
Comment below on who you prefer as the new owner...Hulsizer or Stillman and why??
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