Vegas golden knights

kliq

Registered User
Dec 17, 2017
2,727
1,319
How do you guys explain they are on the top?
This is very interesting, cause they have the team of the leftovers.

I think one factor is this. If you follow baseball closely you will see many instances where a young pitcher will come into the league and just strike out batters left and right. Then about a year into their career's, it stops and they begin to get shelled because teams watch him, scout him, and learn what his weaknesses are (think Dontrelle Willis). If the pitcher is truly good, he will adapt and still be good, if he's not that good, he will go downhill fast.

I think this is similar to what is happening with Vegas right now. I think that teams don't have a lot of data to go off off when scouting them. Now as the season goes on, more and more analytic's are being tracked and recorded, but at the end of the day its hard to have accurate data from a small sample size.

If I had to guess, I would say that a regression is imminent. I just can't see them keeping this up, once teams learn their weaknesses.

The other possibility, is that they do have elite talent but we just don't know it yet.
 

Redder Winger

Registered User
May 4, 2017
3,700
730
Two main things I can think of
1) A lot of players who were let go by their teams and they're playing like they have something to prove.
2) All but 7 players have contracts ending in the next two years. They're playing like they have something to prove.
 
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Red Stanley

Registered User
Apr 25, 2015
2,414
778
USA
Good coaching, playing loose with no expectations (though that's rapidly changing), scouting hasn't figured them out yet since they're a brand new team. They look legit right now. We'll see how it goes in the playoffs.
 

The Zetterberg Era

Ball Hockey Sucks
Nov 8, 2011
40,957
11,577
Ft. Myers, FL
Two main things I can think of
1) A lot of players who were let go by their teams and they're playing like they have something to prove.
2) All but 7 players have contracts ending in the next two years. They're playing like they have something to prove.

David Perron is probably the only guy I would say is an average skater on their roster too. They have a system predicated on speed in a league favoring speed. They were built to be very fast, when you could cruise the options left it seems skating was a huge factor in how they selected. They also benefited from being a lone expansion team and the league even admitting they wanted this expansion team to be more competitive. I seriously doubt they thought they would be this competitive, but good on Vegas.
 
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Winger98

Moderator
Feb 27, 2002
22,756
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Cleveland
The cap pushed teams to leave some guys exposed that wouldn't have been exposed in past expansion drafts. Look back at the expansion rosters for teams like Florida and San Jose. Near total crap. Old crap, too. A guy like James Neal or Marchessault or Perron would not have been exposed. This Vegas team is not a team of strictly leftovers like we have seen of expansion teams in the past.
 
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HIFE

Registered User
May 10, 2011
3,219
250
Detroit, MI
They're an example of top-notch managing. If you've watched NHL the last seasons you know Vegas picked character guys with a lot of skill. Neal for instance was a key yet underrated part of Nahville's run last spring. Really smart choices from their scouts up and down. Think also the amount of NMC's around the league that teams would've loved to dump but couldn't. You take one of the hottest coaches in the game and add in the glut of picks these two years, the Knights are set up nice for a while to come.
 

Mlotek

Registered User
Feb 28, 2017
921
346
South of US Border
I don't think we can understate the importance of Gallant as the coach finding a system that will work for the team.

I expected Vegas to be able to score, they had bunch of young guys who could put up 30-40 points in a 2nd/3rd line role and tons of forward prospects. Their weakness should have been their D which is holding up quite decently.

What is a bigger surprise Marchesault/Karlsson being close to point a game or Miller/Schmidt at 0.5 points per game? IMO, its the D.
 

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