League News: 2017-2018 General NHL Fan Talk - (News n' Scores n' Stuff)

[nihlify]

Watching the Jets reminds me of the Caps of old. Attack attack, but no goals when they need it most.

Really? Expect a few bursts of energy here and there they look mostly lame.

 

[twabby]

Complaining about Vegas winning is childish. The league didn’t tell Florida to give up 2/3 of a top line and fire a good coach, or tell MAF to become good again, or tell other teams to protect vets over good youthful alternatives. They are on a great run with a solid team identity getting some good puck luck at the right time.

The draft rules weren’t overly generous. Many of the other 30 teams just made inexcusable mistakes.

 

[Revelation]

I can't be the only one. I think it is complete utter bull**** that Vegas can just "buy" a team like that?

Yeah, it takes real skill to take other teams decent to good players and build a team that way.

Meanwhile, every other team had to do it the old fashion way and build through the draft all those years.

This is like playing video games against someone who just used their credit card to get all the upgrades and just own you

Yes, I get you still have to play the game and win but play like everyone else had to play

Yeah that William Karlsson that Columbus paid a 1st rounder to get rid of was in high demand lmao, as was that Rielly Smith.

Anyone with a 1st and some mid round picks could have gotten most the guys Vegas got. The rules were set up so that every team could protect their established top line players and top pairing defensemen. Their best D was our own Nate Schmidt who we could have easily protected at the cost of a tweener like Burakovsky or Johansson.

 

[Revelation]

Vegas in the scf
I'm afraid that Gary wants his final to start asap and the refs will be on bolts side tomorrow.

They're gonna feed the caps powerplays for them to choke on?

 

[Capsman]

Complaining about Vegas winning is childish. The league didn’t tell Florida to give up 2/3 of a top line and fire a good coach, or tell MAF to become good again, or tell other teams to protect vets over good youthful alternatives. They are on a great run with a solid team identity getting some good puck luck at the right time.

The draft rules weren’t overly generous. Many of the other 30 teams just made inexcusable mistakes.

Oh, and we deserve blame as well. We valued Andre Burakovsky and a third round pick (MJ) over Nate Schmitt, who is a legitimate top pairing defenseman. How this team had that right under their nose and did not recognize it is beyond me.

 

[twabby]

This tweet sums up my thoughts pretty nicely:



Maybe don’t trade away good players?

 

[twabby]

Oh, and we deserve blame as well. We valued Andre Burakovsky and a third round pick (MJ) over Nate Schmitt, who is a legitimate top pairing defenseman. How this team had that right under their nose and did not recognize it is beyond me.

Sure. I think the biggest mistake was benching Schmidt down the stretch in 2017. Perhaps if they played him 82 games they would have realized his actual value and done more to protect him. And his immediate impact in the 2017 playoffs should have been a clear indicator of his quality if his regular season performance (which was great) wasn’t enough.

Even so, Washington’s mistake wasn’t (IMO) nearly as bad as teams like FLA, MIN, ANA, CBJ, and others. Washington was forced to lose a pretty good player no matter what due to their great (on paper) roster. These other teams could have lost mediocre players and instead paid to lose good players.

 

[Dr John Carlson]

I don't think Vegas will have a lot of problems with either Tampa or Washington, to be honest.

 

[Calicaps]

Complaining about Vegas winning is childish. The league didn’t tell Florida to give up 2/3 of a top line and fire a good coach, or tell MAF to become good again, or tell other teams to protect vets over good youthful alternatives. They are on a great run with a solid team identity getting some good puck luck at the right time.

The draft rules weren’t overly generous. Many of the other 30 teams just made inexcusable mistakes.

This is nonsense. The 1974 Caps called. They'd like a do-over with Vegas rules.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

1974 make up draft, I like it!

 

[VaCaps Fan]

Greg Joly can introduce the pick and Macco-shark will be pleased!

 

[twabby]

This is nonsense. The 1974 Caps called. They'd like a do-over with Vegas rules.

I don’t think it would have been a good idea to stick Vegas with a historically bad team to start like they did with the Capitals, if you’re saying that’s what the NHL should have done.

I’m looking at preseason prognostications and nobody thought Vegas was going to be a contender. Borderline playoff team at best. So if they truly were gifted an excellent roster by the NHL why weren’t more people picking them to go far based on superior talent? They are clearly the most well-coached team in the league and they aren’t burdened by slow vets, neither of which has to do with expansion draft rules.

 

[Koized]

Not only did Vegas get much more favorable rules for teams protecting players, they also benefitted from the salary cap, not competing in the expansion draft with another team and a larger number of teams to get to pick from. The rules were so much more favorable than prior expansion teams its astounding.

The Wild and Jackets were looking at Andrew Brunette and Epsen Knutsen as their best players. I don’t think older teams like the Capitals can complain too much but the more recent expansion teams should be furious.

 

[CapitalsCupReality]

Greg Joly can introduce the pick and Macco-shark will be pleased!

Hah! I LOL’d.

 

[Cappy76]

If we’re going to complain about drafting of the 74 team to this years Vegas team how about with Seattle we just do a fantasy draft and everyone gets redrafted.

 

[Devil Dancer]

I'll with twabby, Vegas' success is more about bad decisions by 30 NHL teams and good decisions by Vegas, and a huge chunk of luck, than it is about draft rules.

So in this case I'm saying don't hate the game, hate the player.

 

[Calicaps]

The issue is that teams were only in position to have to make really tough and often bad choices because the rules were so generous. Without those rules, those choices never have to be made.

 

[Langway]

You certainly can't fault the draft process for the numerous trades that were made with them, although the cap and NTCs were partial factors as well. Mostly it's just that, for as great a story as Vegas is, there's also a flipside that involves how many organizations are perennially poorly run to where this sort of immediate success is possible. They have gotten a lot of luck as well, not just in terms of players acquired but also the timing involved altogether that ultimately determined who would be be available, but they also made a hell of a hire in Gallant and were well prepared.

As much as some writers may want to champion their success as a sign of the greatness of parity in the league, the lack of diversity among recent Cup winners over the past decade suggests otherwise. Maybe that begins to open up further as some teams age and fall behind the curve organizationally. I'd rather watch more compelling series all-around than what we get these days. It's not just parity but the game changing, becoming less punishingly physical and more blandly about switching between pace and structure.

 

[g00n]

I don’t think it would have been a good idea to stick Vegas with a historically bad team to start like they did with the Capitals, if you’re saying that’s what the NHL should have done.

I’m looking at preseason prognostications and nobody thought Vegas was going to be a contender. Borderline playoff team at best. So if they truly were gifted an excellent roster by the NHL why weren’t more people picking them to go far based on superior talent? They are clearly the most well-coached team in the league and they aren’t burdened by slow vets, neither of which has to do with expansion draft rules.

Except it does. The cap-era NHL favors cheap, faster, younger players and the draft setup encouraged exposure and acquisition of such players compared to protected, expensive, slower veterans.

So that's exactly what was handed to Vegas by virtue of the talent department of every other team in the league, which pre-selected NHL quality players while filtering the borderline and AHL guys out.

As for why nobody predicted them going this far, why would anyone do that? 90% of the preseason prognostication is wrong as it is, and it's usually based on star power in rosters or previous season performance. They had neither.

We can say "all these other teams screwed up" but what were the alternatives? Did ALL these teams mess up horribly or were there a few "make the best of a bad situation" deals where GMGM had all the leverage?

If someone else builds a team under those same rules this year it's probably going to be competitive, too, and many teams will be forced into making unfavorable decisions. Good coaching probably pushes the team up a few notches.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

Vegas got a clean slate of fast skaters, while teams like the Caps have older guys like Orpik....

 

[Bieronymus Trotz]

People should keep in mind that any analysis of Vegas has to account for why the conventional wisdom last summer was that the roster sucked and the draft had been a disappointment for the team.

 

[g00n]

People should keep in mind that any analysis of Vegas has to account for why the conventional wisdom last summer was that the roster sucked and the draft had been a disappointment for the team.

That's easy.

1) They didn't get the huge haul of top draft picks people predicted.
2) Name recognition. Same as any other preseason analysis.
3) No previous history. Again, same as any other preseason analysis.

Nobody but the GMs and scouts probably have enough diversity of exposure to all the players in every system to make a comprehensive preseason analysis. Even then there's doing to be sandboxing and badmouthing because nobody is going to want to admit they gave up a good player or the league's lucrative expansion system is bad.

 

[RandyHolt]

George may go down in history as the greatest GM of all time.

We know he tried to tank and struck oil instead. He is a modern day Beverly Hillbilly. I credit new cities more than anything he did. And he had every GM bent over a barrel a year ago. The other GMs bear some of the blame in letting him build a contender sure, but how were they supposed to be winning, yet purge their roster effectively enough to not lose a key player to George. They couldn't.

After they win the cup I hope someone asks when did he realize that he accidentally built a contender.

It kind of pisses me off that Schmidt had no chance to develop his offensive game here in part because we only use RH shots on our PP. We need an inverted PP2 to let the lefties build up chemistry and pad their stats, at least so we can trade them for something of value. And save money on some of the PPP padding done by our RH twigs.

 

[VaCaps Fan]

Really good analysis, imagine this team if he tried to build a “winner” on draft day!

 

[Capsman]