I don't have a problem with it because quite frankly I don't understand how they are doing so well with that unassuming roster?
Any fans of an underperforming team should be frustrated with their GM's. Placing anger on the NHL for the expansion draft rules are misguided. As I stated before, VGK did plenty of deals with team to take a draft pick in order to ensure that a certain targeted player was taken (mostly for salary cap reasons). Heck, Pittsburgh gave us a pick to take Fleury. As did CBJ to take Wild Bill! It's not like the NHL was dictating what players VGK took from which teams. It was up to the GM's. I get that nobody wanted to part with any player, but it had to happen to build a team.
The NHL is not responsible for years of futility in Buffalo or Colorado or anywhere else. Anger towards them is misplaced. Vegas has simply greatly exceeded expectations and now people are salty and looking at the wrong people to point blame.
Bettman heel turn!the original poster compared the NHL to wrestling, lol.
Dismissed.
I don't fully agree with the OP, but I can tell you that talent pool VGK had to choose from exceeds what the last expansion teams had to work with.
I see a lot of these guys labeled as 3rd/4th line rejects. That's not a fair label to put on a guy that scored 30 goals 2 seasons ago in FLA, a 29 year old vet with 3 20-goal seasons, and a 30 year old with 263 NHL goals including a 40-goal season. Add to that a veteran goalie with multiple rings (more on that below). These aren't old timers, and they aren't unproven youth, they are veterans with solid career numbers.
That being said, 2 outliers that have greatly contributed to the success of VGK.
1. Fleury has put up by far the best numbers of his career (GAA/SV%). He is the league leader in both. Why? I have no clue, but he has been the MVP of the team imo.
2. Wild Bill. No one in Columbus thought twice about losing Bill. I loved the guy on the ice, but never dreamed we'd be losing a 40 goal scorer in him. He could be just a flash in the pan (Jordan Tootoo), but I don't think that is the case. He won't score 40 goals again, but he'll be a legit 1C for several years imo. A lot of guys just need to be in the right system, and play for the right coach for it all to click. Bill was given ample opportunities in Columbus to show his skills, but it never all came together.
Yes, they had a blueprint of the expansion draft, give me a break. By the way Alex Jones is a psycho who attacks victims of tragedies to further rile up his tin foil hat following so he can make a profit.
It was hard to take the NHL seriously before Vegas
The expansion draft unfairly penalized some teams while others lost nothing. Nothing to do with bad management. More about luck and timing. For instance some teams had a lot of young players(second year) that weren't even required to be protected. The rules were way too favorable. Also having to protect players with NTC hurts that team a lot. In addition Vegas is exempt from the Seattle expansion and having to trade away a first rd pick isn't good for hockey or its fans.
OP started off on the right track with VGK being an indictment of the league but points the finger in the wrong direction.
the NHL is a laughing stock because teams around the league make asinine roster and team management decisions that result in the top teams and talent being watered down. Less elite teams and more market inefficiencies, more opportunity for lesser teams with lesser talent to become successful if you can capitalize on those mistakes and exploit inefficiencies.
Don't blame Gary Bettman. Blame FLA for paying VGK to take Marchessault and R. Smith to protect a #5 D man. Blame teams like EDM and CGY for hamstringing their own teams and elite talent with old school thinking and creating a vacuum for other teams to take their place by gaining easy points against them. And those are just a few examples off the top of my head. The league is littered with them. Asset management is a laughing stock in the NHL and one of the main reasons its growth is stunted.
What a league lol. Its best player won't be able to show his skills in the postseason and grow the game despite having over 100 points in the era of goaltending dominance. Embarrassing.
Oh my, you really used the amount of goals as an argument?There hasn't "been enough talent" in the league since it was 6 teams in 60s, and those teams provided the same amount of goals than today. Going from 6 teams in the 60s to 21 teams in the 80s diluted the league so much stars got to run up the scoreboard against AHLers. Off the boards and out was considered a skilled play in the 80s (joke).
It means quite the opposite: that the praised stars aren't that dominant. Basically Vegas proves what I've been saying for years: a KHL team could compete in the NHL.You make no sense. If anything Vegas success means that if you can build a successful team with other teams 3rd/4th liners and rejects there still is lot of untapped talent around. The players just need the playing minutes to show it.
Okay, you repeated all the nerratives implanted by the league and the media. They are still not true. I pay to watch great hockey. Most of today's NHL is dull.William Karlsson was a 3rd line shutdown center turned 40 goal scorer, and he literally just scored a goal of the year candidate. Is that not the type of player you pay to watch?
There's this myth that because those highlight reel plays don't happen as much anymore is because the league is less talented. I believe it's a myth because when you watch guys in practice they're very clearly still as skilled. The difference is now that everyone is good it's a lot harder to pull off those moves in game. Players aren't getting smarter per say, but with modern development and coaching players are now very close in terms of practical skills like puckhandling, skating, and shooting.
Best on best at the Olympics is low scoring for the same reason. Shoutout to the Incredibles movie, they nailed it on the head with that line "if everyone's a super, nobody is." Now you may not be happy about the development (I'm not) but you can't expect people to stop learning so that things go back to the hey days where star players could stand out more. Nobody wants to be the guy who gets dangled because then they don't get paid, so of course everyone will struggle their hardest to get to the top even if they might not have the natural abilities of a Crosby or Ovechkin.
OP started off on the right track with VGK being an indictment of the league but points the finger in the wrong direction.
the NHL is a laughing stock because teams around the league make asinine roster and team management decisions that result in the top teams and talent being watered down. Less elite teams and more market inefficiencies, more opportunity for lesser teams with lesser talent to become successful if you can capitalize on those mistakes and exploit inefficiencies.
Don't blame Gary Bettman. Blame FLA for paying VGK to take Marchessault and R. Smith to protect a #5 D man. Blame teams like EDM and CGY for hamstringing their own teams and elite talent with old school thinking and creating a vacuum for other teams to take their place by gaining easy points against them. And those are just a few examples off the top of my head. The league is littered with them. Asset management is a laughing stock in the NHL and one of the main reasons its growth is stunted.
What a league lol. Its best player won't be able to show his skills in the postseason and grow the game despite having over 100 points in the era of goaltending dominance. Embarrassing.
Okay, you repeated all the nerratives implanted by the league and the media. They are still not true. I pay to watch great hockey. Most of today's NHL is dull.
It means quite the opposite: that the praised stars aren't that dominant. Basically Vegas proves what I've been saying for years: a KHL team could compete in the NHL.
I know I am probably in the minority here, but what Vegas has been able to do this year is an absolute joke and the reason why the NHL will never be a big time league.
You have several fan bases who have struggled for decades and decades to win The Stanley Cup. Many of these fan bases have never even sniffed the Cup and many have trouble making the playoffs on any sort of a consistent basis. Years, decades and lifetimes of emotional struggles by fan bases and no real glory to show for it.
Now in year one, we have an expansion team that is in as good of a position as any team in the league to win it all. Did they have to draft really well? No. Did they have to make some great trades? No. Did they have to make shrewd free agent signings? No. All they had to do was let the NHL do what it does and gift them a roster capable of wining it all in year one.
People will talk and write about how this is a great story and a cinderella team, but in reality it is the NHL doing way too much to make them successful out the gate. You basically have the NHL engineering the success of a team out the gate, so that team will sell tickets early in their existence. It may be good for the short term success of that market, but it severely hurts the integrity of the league and for me if the Vegas Golden Knights win the Stanley Cup this year, then the significance of winning the Stanley Cup is deeply tarnished.
I love the Sabres and I love hockey. That said, with the game becoming less appealing to watch over the years, and the Sabres being absolutely horrible, I have not watched as much as I used too. If Vegas wins the Cup this year, it is going to be real hard for me to spend my time watching the NHL, because it is frankly a joke. If Vegas wins the Cup out the gate in year one, the dream of the Sabres winning the Cup is going to hold much less meaning for me. It should be a struggle, not a gift. I have not watched wrestling since high school, but it is like when David Arquette became WCW World Champion, a sign that the company/league is dying.
Bullspit. Nashville would have loved to have kept Neal.The NHL gifted them nothing. At the expansion draft everyone talked about how terrible their roster was.
Give the players and the coaches credit. It's basically a team of expendable castaway players who have gone all in with their coaches system and are playing as a team.