“There were discussions that went well down the road with two Midwestern cities, but those in the end just didn’t work out,” Blues owner Tom Stillman said. “But (the organization) worked extremely hard over the last two years to come up with an option. Really because of some specific circumstances involved, those things didn’t work out, but believe me, it was not for lack of trying.”

Had either group finalized the purchase of an expansion franchise, the AHL would have grown this year and the Blues would not have been on the outside looking in.

“We would have liked to get to 31 teams this fall, which would have made life much simpler for the St. Louis Blues in that we would have had 31 homes for 31 teams,” Andrews said. “There were a number of opportunities that the Blues helped to develop that potentially could have created a 31st team for this year. But certainly through no fault of anyone’s, we were just not able to secure an opportunity for this year anywhere. I don’t think there were better options than those that they turned up, and both the Blues and ourselves were disappointed that those didn’t move forward in time for this year.”

ALTERNATIVE AGREEMENTS