EP Rinkside Vibe Report: Is Mullett Arena a good NHL venue?

TEMPE, Arizona – On its face, the idea is ludicrous.

An NHL team playing, potentially for years, in a venue that wouldn't rank in the top-20 of Division I college hockey arenas in terms of seating capacity.

You can try to sell the intimacy, you can try to sell the unique atmosphere, but won't it still always end up feeling completely insane that actual NHL games are being played in Mullett Arena? This is a place where the capacity is listed at 5,000 for college games, but various NHL rules mean they can only squeeze 4,600 in there when it's sold out. And you're just going to be able to go see, say, Sidney Crosby or Alexander Ovechkin or Connor McDavid play there for the next few seasons. It doesn't really make a ton of sense on paper.

But in actual practice, you do have to hand it to them: It