Las Vegas team to name GM 'in a few days': report

The Las Vegas NHL expansion team could hire a general manager before the end of the week, owner Bill Foley told the Las Vegas Review-Journal on Monday.
"We're hoping to have an announcement in a few days," Foley said. "We've got two primary candidates and we're trying to get this done. We need to get a scouting staff hired and whoever we hire as our GM will be responsible for putting the [scouting] staff together."

Some of the seven candidates for the job interviewed with Foley and his staff at Foley's ranch in Montana. Other interviews were conducted on the phone.
Las Vegas will begin play in the NHL at the start of the 2017-18 season.
"I can tell you the people we talked to are all well-known in the hockey community and are well-respected," Foley said. "They're all very smart and they've done different things for different teams. Some are strong on the [salary] cap. Some are strong when it comes to assessing talent. But they all have strong backgrounds."

One person who wasn't contacted for the job was Florida Panthers president Dale Tallon.
"We never talked," Tallon told the newspaper. "I know he asked my owner [Vincent Viola] for permission and he was given it. They're both West Point guys. But I never heard from Mr. Foley."
Foley said progress is being made on a team nickname and logo. Discussions are ongoing between the team, the NHL and adidas. He said the target to announce the name and logo is early October.
"We've got two or three really good names that we're seriously considering," Foley said. "The adidas people are very talented when it comes to design and they've been great. Same with the NHL. They've been extremely helpful.
"Our biggest problem is trademarks. Some of the names have trademarks and you have to go to those people and see what they have and we're working through that."

The new team is nearly sold out for season tickets at T-Mobile Arena, which will seat 17,500 for hockey. Foley said 15,300 season tickets have been sold so far.
"We're pretty close to being at capacity," Foley said of the season ticket sales. "We need to set some seats aside for individual game sales. We have to have tickets for the visiting team and we need to have about 500 seats set aside for our staff."