Las Vegas still looks like a likely expansion city for the NHL. (USATSI)
Las Vegas still looks like a likely expansion city for the NHL. (USATSI)

The expansion process that could result in the addition of two new teams to the NHL continued to move forward on Friday when Quebecor, the group behind Quebec's push to bring back the Nordiques, announced that they had moved on to the third phase.

Even though there has been no official word yet from the prospective Las Vegas ownership group, Joshua Cooper of Yahoo Sports reported that they, too, have been invited to the third phase of the process according to the league. 

Phase II was centered around the groups giving more information to the league, including information about the markets and the ownership groups themselves. The league also provided relevant information to them regarding league finances.

The third phase is expected to focus more on the ownership financials, including the expansion fee that could be as much as $500 million. When the teams filed their expansion applications as part of the first phase of the process they had to pay a $10 million application fee, $2 million of which was non-refundable.

According to the Associated Press it's possible that expansion announcements could come within the next month, though neither team would begin play until the 2017 season at the earliest.

Quebec City has been without an NHL team since the original Nordiques moved to Colorado and became the Avalanche prior to the 1995-96 season. They won the first of their two Stanley Cups that season, sweeping the Florida Panthers in four games. 

Las Vegas has no professional sports teams at the moment and the NHL is looking to be the first to break into the market. 

Earlier this week the Las Vegas Wants Hockey Twitter account was posting updated pictures of the new arena that is currently under construction, as well as a virtual tour.