NHL in Europe?

So a little while back I was taking to a friend who doesn't watch to much hockey. He brought up a great point. "A lot of the NHL players come from Europe, right? So why don't they try to just put a few teams there?" I answered by telling him with all the travel and things like that would make this almost impossible. Along with European teams having trouble to draw fans. But when I heard that the Bruins would be playing the Phoenix Coyotes two times in Prague, Czech Republic I have to start to think that the NHL may be starting to wonder down this path. I mean the reason that they would be holding these games in Prague is to raise "awareness" so to speak about the NHL. Why would they want to raise awareness if they weren't thinking about placing a franchise there. It isn't like they are doing this for the fans, because no American fans are going to attend. The Patriots played a game in London last year, so maybe other sports are thinking about this. I really can't figure out why the NHL would do this unless they wanted to place a franchise in Europe. I personally don't think that it is possible just because NHL players don't want to take 10 hour flights. Any of you guys have ideas why our friends at the NHL would want to do this?