Though still short of the 10,000 deposits they set out to attain when launching their season-ticket drive last month, Hockey Vision Las Vegas is impressing the right folks.

The NHL has been encouraged by the near 8,000 commitments fetched thus far, based on their progress being in the absence of both corporate and casino sponsorship.

"When they designed their ticket drive, they did it with our input and basically we told them what we'd like to see is how many local, non-corporate fans they can get to put up real money without a promise of having a NHL team," NHL deputy commissioner Bill Daly told Sportsnet's Chris Johnston.

"If you look at it through that lens, I think the response has been good. Because if you add to that what they probably have already in corporate and casino commitments, they basically have a full building."

The city itself is fully dependent on tourism, but it's hard to imagine that 8,000 "true" fans would be enough to convince the NHL of the market's viability.

Bill Foley, the lead voice of the prospective ownership group, is expected to travel to New York to meet with NHL brass soon.