I'm not even going to touch on the Quebec market size here, maybe if people want a NHL team to go back to Quebec, maybe there should be enough investors or an ownership group that wants them there enough to flash money to get them there
There really seems to be this idea where Quebec is somehow owed a team despite it not seeming like there is any sort of ownership or funding for a team to be there. The NHL isn't passing on Quebec for some sort of bias, it's because no one is making a legitimate financial case for why they should own a team. If there was an ownership group with a lot of money and a lot of local financial backing for a team, I completely believe that they'd go back to Quebec.