Really? And yet this Vegas team is in their 4th year and so far have reached the Cup finals, lost in round one and then reached the Semi finals. Trust me, they are much better built than any Habs squad under Bergevin.
Ah, not qutie. George McPhee is a master of building a prospect pool but he's really, really bad at pro scouting and trading. He rarely gets good value in trades for established players. Being at par, like with his Pacioretty trade, is the most you can hope for. But his ability to get prospects gives him enormous leeway to recover from such mistakes, which is why the Flip Forsberg trade did not stop the Washington Capitals from eventually getting their goal, although McPhee had to be fired for someone better at pro trades. I know McPhee has upgraded his position and is no longer GM, but his successors prints will take some time to set in.
Vegas has quietly been changed rather substantially since that inaugural season.
Miller and Schmidt are gone. Theodore, then just an ignored prospect, is now the top D of the team. I haven't watch him much, but in the glimpses during his year before his "breakout", he showed shades of Subban maneuvers. In fact, his career trajectory production-wise is quite similar to Subban, but with Subban breaking out one year sooner.
James Neal is no longer there.
Reilly Smith has always been that "vanilla" forward in which he can be passable on a line but is really replaceable. He has regressed this season.
Paul Stastny was there as depth last year. He is not there now.
As I've mentioned before, Marchessault and Karlsson have cooled from their contract year surge. They are 20/30 guys these days and not the near point-per-game players they were in that Cinderella run.
Pietrangelo hasn't really done much offensively this year. Alec Martinez has done more.
Their D of Theodore, Pietrangelo, and Martinez is comparable to when we had Petry, Markov, and Subban.
The Vegas Golden Knights now, are a quality regular season team, but they have some considerable question marks regarding being Cup contenders. Just like the Caps in the late 90s had that one Cinderella run and got wrecked by Detroit. They never went back and eventually had to blow up that core of Bondra, Gonchar, etc and tank for OV or Malkin.
The Knights first line is Pac-C-Stone.
Second line is Marchessault-Karlsson-RW
But then their third and fourth line are not exactly world beaters. Nosek is their most productive grinder.
could not disagree more
