SEATTLE (AP) During his first stint in Seattle http://www.flamesshoponline.com/authentic-jaromir-jagr-jersey , Tod Leiweke helped develop the Seattle Seahawks into a benchmark franchise.He’s returning to the Northwest this time with a chance to build a franchise from scratch – pending NHL approval.Leiweke was introduced Wednesday as the CEO and president of the prospective NHL expansion franchise seeking to call Seattle home beginning with the 2020 season. The announcement has been expected since Leiweke announced he was stepping down from his role with the NFL earlier this year. But it was another step forward for the expansion bid.”It’s kind of fun to start from scratch because you can build a culture the way you would want a culture to be built with likeminded people who want to serve, who love the game of hockey. In this, it is a grand opportunity,” Leiweke said.The prospective majority owner of the franchise, David Bonderman, said he believed there could be a possible conditional announcement about the franchise from the NHL in June and a potential formal announcement in September coinciding with upcoming NHL Board of Governors meetings.”We hope there is not any doubt about it and it’s certainly not just a formality. However, there is a process with the NHL and we expect to play through that process,” Bonderman said.NHL Commissioner Gary Bettman, speaking before the playoff opener in Las Vegas on Wednesday night Johnny Gaudreau Jersey Kids , wasn’t as optimistic, saying there is no set timeline for a decision on Seattle’s expansion bid.”We don’t have a timetable,” Bettman said. ”That would be nothing more than speculation. I would be surprised.”While announcing the president and CEO for a team that doesn’t exist yet might seem a bit presumptuous, Leiweke brings the kind of clout that will only strengthen a bid that almost appears to be a foregone conclusion.Oak View Group, a partner in the franchise and the group responsible for renovating KeyArena, is expected to begin construction on the building later this fall and have the remodel done for the 2020 season. The season-ticket drive that started on March 1 was a rousing success and was capped at 33,000 deposits.Leiweke got his start in hockey with the Minnesota Wild. He also worked in Vancouver and most recently helped build Tampa Bay into a powerhouse in the Eastern Conference. Leiweke left the Lightning in 2015 to become the COO of the NFL and didn’t have any interest in leaving the league office until the project in Seattle began to gain real traction.”The fact is I found the NFL to be a pretty amazing and fascinating place to work and I was starting to get quite comfortable in my role there so I wasn’t looking,” Leiweke said. ”But I think the stars aligned and my son’s advice was, `Dad Los Angeles Kings Hats Womens , how can you not do this?’ Today, I think he’s right.”Leiweke’s job will be to capitalize on a market whose demographics have changed significantly since he left the Seahawks in 2010 after being largely responsible for the team hiring head coach Pete Carroll. Seattle is the largest market in the country without a winter pro sports franchise and has seen an influx of wealth in recent years. Even when he was running the Seahawks, Leiweke believed Seattle was ripe for the NHL and the response to the season-ticket drive only strengthened that belief.”It really is a great fit. I always thought this could be a great hockey market and it proved it. So far, so good,” Leiweke said. ”Now it’s on us because I think people are going to show up opening day ready to believe and what are we going to put out there? Does it all connect?”Leiweke’s hiring also reunites him with his brother, Tim, the CEO of Oak View Group, which created the privately funded deal to finally solve Seattle’s arena issue.”I’m so in awe of what we did here,” Tod Leiweke said. ”This has been a challenging issue and my brother came in here and figured it out.”— VANCOUVER Womens Mark Giordano Jersey , British Columbia (AP) Clayton Keller is playing more like a seasoned veteran than a wide-eyed rookie.He’s also a big reason for the Arizona Coyotes‘ late-season surge.Keller scored in the first period and assisted on Derek Stepan’s winning goal with 58 seconds left in the third, leading the Coyotes to a 2-1 victory over the Vancouver Canucks on Wednesday night.”Last 12 games, he’s got a lot of juice,” Coyotes coach Rick Tocchet said. ”You can tell there’s no hitting the wall. I really feel this last month he’s going to finish strong.”Keller is fourth in the rookie scoring race with 48 points, and has four goals and eight assists since Feb. 8.”He had some energy tonight,” Tocchet said. ”He had the puck a lot. One thing is he is not afraid to go to the net and he showed that getting that goal for us and, obviously, making that play to Step.”Backup Darcy Kuemper made 16 saves in place of starter Antti Raanta, who missed the game due to injury. The victory improved Arizona to 8-2-1 in its last 11 games.”That’s one of the best games I’ve seen any team play this year Youth Matthew Tkachuk Jersey ,” Kuemper said. ”They were incredible start to finish, we had the puck for almost the entire game down in their zone and I was just hoping my feet wouldn’t go to sleep.”Jussi Jokinen scored for the Canucks, who have lost four of their past five games and will likely be without star rookie Brock Boeser for the rest of the regular season after he injured his back against the New York Islanders on Monday night.”With Brock or without Brock, this game was far from good enough,” Canucks captain Henrik Sedin said. ”It just wasn’t good enough from each and every guy.”Jacob Markstrom stopped 32 shots for Vancouver.”It’s not our best game, for sure,” Markstrom said. ”They worked harder than us. They wanted it more than we did. And that’s pretty simple.”Tyler Motte, alone at the side of the net, missed a chance to put Vancouver ahead early in the third period as Nick Cousins deflected his shot to keep it 1-1. Motte got another chance from the slot Michael Frolik Jersey , but Kuemper made the save.The Coyotes dominated the shot clock and finally solved Markstrom with less than a minute to play. Keller found Stepan in the slot and he buried it past Markstrom to avoid overtime.Vancouver appeared to have scored first in the opening period on a short-handed chance during an Arizona 5-on-3. With Daniel Sedin and Darren Archibald in the penalty box, Brandon Sutter sprung loose on a breakaway and appeared to go top corner on Kuemper. But video review revealed the puck had hit the crossbar.Just as Sedin’s penalty expired, Markstrom made an incredible glove save on Oliver Ekman-Larsson’s shot, but the goalie couldn’t control the puck. Keller picked it out from under defenseman Alex Edler to score at 18:20.”Pretty sure it went into my glove and I was pretty happy with myself,” Markstrom said of his initial reaction. ”But then I looked in the glove and there was nothing there. The puck was in the back of the net.”On a delayed Arizona penalty and Markstrom pulled for an extra attacker for almost a full minute, Jokinen scored his first for Vancouver with a one-timer off a corner feed from Brendan Leipsic that tied it at 1 after the first period.Arizona had the majority of chances in an uneventful second period, with the Canucks mustering only four shots on goal to the Coyotes’ nine. Vancouver’s Jake Virtanen missed on a wide-open net. At the other end, Coyotes veteran Brad Richardson hit the post on a partial breakaway.NOTES: Coyotes defenseman Alex Goligoski missed the game due to his wife expecting their second child.UP NEXTCoyotes: at Colorado on Saturday.Canucks: vs. Minnesota on Friday night.