Hypothetical situation regarding a brand new expansion team

[Ducks in a row]

If a brand new expansion team won the Stanley Cup from their 1st ever season how do you think the hockey world or even the sports world would handle it?

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[hatterson]

They would probably be shocked.

 

[Ducks in a row]

They would probably be shocked.

Well of course they would but wonder what people think would happen beyond just being shocked. Would it get people all over talking more about hockey maybe making it more popular? Would fans from Canada go crazy that a brand new expansion team won the Cup in year 1? Would the new teams fans become intolerable?

 

[mattef]

It would perhaps make a 30 second sports news segment in places where they don't usually talk about hockey but that's about it. Did you know the Chicago Fire won the MLS title as an expansion team in 1998? Did people start going crazy about that league?

In here people would whine that the expansion draft was too favorable... but then thing would go back to the usual

But aside from that I don't really see what else there would be to say...

 

[northeastern]

They would probably be shocked.

It would indeed be shocking.

But people would discuss how amazing of a job the Gm did and how people stepped up big and how unprecedented it is. Then people would get over it

 

[Ducks in a row]

It would perhaps make a 30 second sports news segment in places where they don't usually talk about hockey but that's about it. Did you know the Chicago Fire won the MLS title as an expansion team in 1998? Did people start going crazy about that league?

In here people would whine that the expansion draft was too favorable... but then thing would go back to the usual

But aside from that I don't really see what else there would be to say...

Well the NHL is the top league for Hockey so it's not like MLS

Already have people worrying about the expansion and losing good players. If a expansion team won in year 1 I can only imagine the complaining that would go on in the forums. Might get out of hand.

I wonder how the fans of the new team would be.

 

[dukeofjive]

It would be a cool moment in hockey history, not too sure how much it could help or affect peoples perception of the sport do.

 

[coolboarder]

I would be shocked if it happened. It is not fair to other teams who can choose and pick on the expansion draft. There are too many good players out there and they can easily feast on their young players who might actually develop into superstars while at the same time using the draft to create the depth from 30 teams.

In the 21-teams league, it's easier to protect their players because there were no depth in they protected 16 skaters and 2 goaltenders. Also it was more challenging when there were 2 teams coming in the same time, creating poor depth as it thinned out. There were disposal draft for Minnesota and San Jose and Minnesota North Stars were a part of expansion draft as an agreement with the NHL by a owner who seek to buy the team and move from North Stars to the Bay area. The NHL wanted Minnesota to stay in the state and they had found a new owner as an agreement but unfortunately, they bolted to Dallas after a few season.

The following season, two expansion teams, Ottawa and Tampa Bay had to take turns and the other teams were able to protect 14 skaters and 2 goalies with a requirement to make available for the draft from every team with at least one NHL game in the 1991-92 season to expose a goalie. It is hard to create a depth as the talent availability in the expansion draft has thinned out. In most case, the NHL teams were able to protect their 9 skaters and 5 D or variables were made to protect their assets, in other word, most NHL teams exposed 4th liner and bottom 6 pairing. That's a way to thin out the talents.

In other word, if the league made it easier for the expansion team to have a potential top line with some steals from a team with rich in depth in term of talents and win the Stanley Cup, I would bet you that there will be grumbling around the league about this decision. So I would advise the teams right to protect their top 9 and top 4 D and two goalie with a clause that a team must make goalie available with at least a NHL game in that season. This is only fair if they are able to protect their assets. I do not want an expansion to win a Stanley Cup in their first year in existence.

I have another idea, I would prefer to have this rule, rather than exposing a specific number of players, teams may protect up to 45 million dollars in assets or 2/3 if the roster payroll is less than 45 million signed for next season in their players and must expose the rest if they are above the cap excluding ELC and draft picks. That way, teams will have interesting decisions to make on how many players they wanted to protect and expose their 20 million in asset to the expansion draft. They must be on roster before the free agent period. Also RFA may be offered a contract without giving them compensation from the expansion team, if they choose to sign RFA, they can't pick their player in the expansion draft.

 

[LeafsLegendAkiBerg]

It would be very good publicity for the expansion team and hopefully they'd enjoy success in the successive years.

You'd get a lot of current fans who would be livid that a player they lost in an expansion draft contributed to their cup victory.

 

[Mr Positive]

it would be pretty amazing if an expansion team even made the playoffs. That might have happened in the past considering that it used to be easier to make the playoffs. I think the Oilers might have done that when there 16/21 teams making the playoffs

 

[alko]

After summer GM meeting, there will be a new rule. An expansion team will be automatically blocked from the playoffs for first 5 years.

Now serious. St. Louis Blues were twice in finals. Not exactly what you mean, but everybody accepted it. And i think, everybody will accept also this. It will be nice story for writers.

 

[Jumptheshark]

talked with a buddy of mine who works for an nhl team and i asked this question. he ask how a team could do it. my answer was--at the expantion draft take only the players you want and then hit the open market. he said expantion team or teams are obligated by the expantion rules to take a certain number of players--

would be fun to see an expantion team win

 

[Legionnaire11]

Still don't ever see this happening, but I do think the next expansion team(s) will be the most competitive ever simply due to the fact that there is a cap floor, so they'll have to have at least some halfway decent players.

On the flip side, they just give a bunch of terrible contracts to useless players to reach the floor and that inflates the value of contracts around the league, leading to more lockouts...