[Randall] How the Golden Knights went from risky ploy to model franchise.

PeterSidorkiewicz

HFWF Tourney Undisputed Champion
Apr 30, 2004
32,442
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Lansing, MI
I am curious if only one expansion team entering the league instead of two is a big reason for Vegas having a better roster as well.

They would have mostly split a lot of their roster with a Seattle or whoever.
 

Hal 9000

Registered User
Nov 19, 2016
595
319
I am curious if only one expansion team entering the league instead of two is a big reason for Vegas having a better roster as well.

They would have mostly split a lot of their roster with a Seattle or whoever.

I looked at this some time ago to see if this theory held up. When Vegas made their picks, there was obviously some big names (Neal, Fleury etc.), but Vegas took more players that pundits, and fans laughed about and left some bigger names alone. If Seattle was making picks, you could argue that only half of Vegas' team would have become Knights, and both teams would be filled with 1 line and 9 scrubs - not true. Just looking at Washington for example, They left Oshie, Beagle, Orpik and Grubauer (and many others) all exposed, Vegas took Nate Schmidt (a sometimes healthy scratch). Washington probably felt relief by the pick. Seattle maybe would've chosen Oshie - I know I would. Watson was a hero for Nashville this year, he was exposed. Luongo was exposed, he played pretty well this year, injury notwithstanding. Would Seattle have taken Karlsson, common sense says they wouldn't. Would they have thought of taking both Smith and Marchessault, I doubt it. They might have been split at best.

Fact is; anyone with reasonable hockey knowledge could look at the exposed players and build a second team that on paper looks better than the Knights.
 
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Newsworthy

Registered User
Jan 28, 2018
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I have zero sympathy for teams that painted themselves into corners with NMCs and NTCs. The league cannot be expected to be complicit in allowing those teams to void the conditions of those contracts for the sake of the expansion draft.

Vegas are the benefactors of bad decisions: bad decisions made around giving out NMCs/NTCs, bad decisions around acquiring players with NMCs/NTCs, bad decisions made at UFA time prompting teams to literally pay (with picks) for their mistakes, and bad decisions around protecting certain players based on archaic ways of building teams. Vegas' success is a referendum on the quality of team building in today's NHL, and also an indication of just how many inefficiencies go undiscovered. I love it.

Players with NMC should not be excluded from the draft based on your reasoning and not all these contracts are mistakes. Some teams rather protect other players but can't for various reasons. It isn't the choice of the team to move the player so why do they get special preferance?
So if every player in the league had a NMC then we wouldn't have a draft?
Correct?
Or If the NHL wanted to they can just make these players exempt completely from the draft.
Not to mention players in their second year were exempt from the draft. So teams with young talent have an advantage. So not all mistakes just not evenly calculated amongst the teams.
 

WingsOverAvs

Non Right Winger
Jun 27, 2011
665
100
Orlando FL
I am curious if only one expansion team entering the league instead of two is a big reason for Vegas having a better roster as well.

They would have mostly split a lot of their roster with a Seattle or whoever.
Partly, sure. But they also did a good job leveraging certain teams (like MIN & FLA) that couldnt afford to protect all the players they wanted and got extra value for "doing them a favor". GMGM was VERY smart in how he approached things
 

canuckster19

Former CDC Mod
Sep 23, 2008
3,471
992
Gothenburg Sweden
I looked at this some time ago to see if this theory held up. When Vegas made their picks, there was obviously some big names (Neal, Fleury etc.), but Vegas took more players that pundits, and fans laughed about and left some bigger names alone. If Seattle was making picks, you could argue that only half of Vegas' team would have become Knights, and both teams would be filled with 1 line and 9 scrubs - not true. Just looking at Washington for example, They left Oshie, Beagle, Orpik and Grubauer (and many others) all exposed, Vegas took Nate Schmidt (a sometimes healthy scratch). Washington probably felt relief by the pick. Seattle maybe would've chosen Oshie - I know I would. Watson was a hero for Nashville this year, he was exposed. Luongo was exposed, he played pretty well this year, injury notwithstanding. Would Seattle have taken Karlsson, common sense says they wouldn't. Would they have thought of taking both Smith and Marchessault, I doubt it. They might have been split at best.

Fact is; anyone with reasonable hockey knowledge could look at the exposed players and build a second team that on paper looks better than the Knights.

Florida could breathe easy knowing Vegas wasn’t going to draft Luongo since it was given they were taking Fleury and no way were they going to take two big contract goalies.
 

Duke Silver

Truce?
Jun 4, 2008
8,610
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Toronto/St. John's
Players with NMC should not be excluded from the draft based on your reasoning and not all these contracts are mistakes. Some teams rather protect other players but can't for various reasons. It isn't the choice of the team to move the player so why do they get special preferance?
So if every player in the league had a NMC then we wouldn't have a draft?
Correct?
Or If the NHL wanted to they can just make these players exempt completely from the draft.
Not to mention players in their second year were exempt from the draft. So teams with young talent have an advantage. So not all mistakes just not evenly calculated amongst the teams.

That's not my reasoning at all. I'm in favour of teams being held to uphold the conditions of their NMCs and NTCs. If that screws them in the expansion draft, so be it. Maybe this is a lesson for GMs not to throw around NMCs like candy.

Any scenario where every player in the league has an NMC is ludicrous and not worth discussing.

No, not all teams are created equal. And yes, teams with a lot of young players (like the Leafs, who only lost Brendan Leipsic) made out better than others. In today's NHL you need to use young, cheap talent to be successful. And it just so happens that talent is largely expansion draft-exempt.

The point of the expansion draft wasn't for everyone to just offload Scottie Upshall-types to Vegas. It seems some wish it was that way? The hilarious part is teams actually tried to give away the worst players/contracts possible based on the protection criteria and still ended up gifting Vegas some very good players. Speaks to the hidden and undervalued talent in this league.
 

VoluntaryDom

Formerly DominicBoltsFan / Ⓐ / ✞
Oct 31, 2016
23,285
5,532
Tampa FL
I have never hated a team more than the Vegas Golden Knights and I have never hated hearing about something more than I hate hearing about the Vegas Golden Knights.
The player you lost to them isn’t even on their team anymore and is a bottom pair dman...

Fans of, for example, Florida would make sense to hate vegas
 

Voight

#winning
Feb 8, 2012
40,368
16,647
Mulberry Street
I'm laughing at all the people who were calling McPhee a garbage GM 2 years ago and a bad hire. Now all of a sudden they are singing high praises for him.
 

Joe MacMillan

Registered User
Aug 10, 2005
4,882
102
Helsinki
original 6 confrence

vs

expansion confrence
Yeah, but why do expansion teams have to be bad? Why are they expected to spend a decade on building their roster from ground up before even sniffing the playoffs, let alone the Stanley Cup?

I think this is great for the league. The more parity the better. The ever-lasting bottom feeders like Arizona and Buffalo don't interest me at all, no offence to those franchises.
 

Crede777

Deputized
Dec 16, 2009
14,611
4,124
This is a large reason why I dislike the immediate success of the team:
Most importantly, though, Vegas has thrust a stake right into the heart of the bullshit “The NHL can’t succeed in the Sun Belt” narrative that persists entirely because of awful ownership and uninspired marketing. On the surface, Vegas is the worst market to run a hockey club in in the league…but by embracing nontraditional methods to capture a nontraditional market, the Golden Knights are showing that, while hockey can survive in many major markets, old school hockey thinking can’t. It also makes it clear that we shouldn’t have the slightest ounce of sympathy for any NHL club struggling to sell tickets while complaining about the limitations of their market (particularly in a Canadian market…looking at you, Ottawa).

This type of thinking is just incorrect. Vegas is successful because they are winning. Has nothing to do with the market or the franchise's marketing tactics.

You could have a team on the moon. If they make it to the conference finals, then they will still sell out attendance.
 

Kranix

Deranged Homer
Jun 27, 2012
18,122
16,151
The league realized that it's a huge opportunity to seed an expansion team with the most talented expansion roster the league has ever seen.​

Why wouldn't they? What's the point of expanding, trying to grow the business, with a bottom feeder club that's a whipping boy for ten years? If they start with a half-decent team, they'll make more money and have a stronger fanbase.
 

Crede777

Deputized
Dec 16, 2009
14,611
4,124

Why wouldn't they? What's the point of expanding, trying to grow the business, with a bottom feeder club that's a whipping boy for ten years? If they start with a half-decent team, they'll make more money and have a stronger fanbase.
Because league intervention is bad. For instance, the league would probably have been best off with McDavid in Arizona to artificially prop up the team. So why shouldn't they secretly rig the lottery to ensure Arizona wins him? Or change the rules that year for a similar outcome?

Don't change the expansion draft rules. Let the team succeed or fail entirely on its own.

Also because of precedent. Expansion teams suffer. Watching the newest team suffer legitimizes the pain that previous expansion team fans went through.
 

Kranix

Deranged Homer
Jun 27, 2012
18,122
16,151
Because league intervention is bad. For instance, the league would probably have been best off with McDavid in Arizona to artificially prop up the team. So why shouldn't they secretly rig the lottery to ensure Arizona wins him? Or change the rules that year for a similar outcome?

Also because of precedent. Expansion teams suffer. Watching the newest team suffer legitimizes the pain that previous expansion team fans went through.

You're talking about a conspiracy to rig the draft lottery. I'm talking about giving a Vegas a slightly deeper pool of cast-offs to select from.
 

Crede777

Deputized
Dec 16, 2009
14,611
4,124
You're talking about a conspiracy to rig the draft lottery. I'm talking about giving a Vegas a slightly deeper pool of cast-offs to select from.
First off, it's called a comparison to demonstrate a point. I used a particularly heinous example to show why the league stepping in at all is not good.

Second, it's disingenuous to call the players Vegas selected "cast offs." By definition, any player Vegas selected would be a cast off even if teams could only protect 1 player. That doesn't mean they aren't valuable or that the team deemed them expendable. Now, plenty of teams have more than 11 valuable, key players.

Third, slightly deeper is an understatement. In previous expansion drafts, teams had to select a significant number of players who were on other teams' AHL squads.
 

Joe MacMillan

Registered User
Aug 10, 2005
4,882
102
Helsinki
Because league intervention is bad. For instance, the league would probably have been best off with McDavid in Arizona to artificially prop up the team. So why shouldn't they secretly rig the lottery to ensure Arizona wins him? Or change the rules that year for a similar outcome?

Don't change the expansion draft rules. Let the team succeed or fail entirely on its own.

Also because of precedent. Expansion teams suffer. Watching the newest team suffer legitimizes the pain that previous expansion team fans went through.
The expansion draft was not a league intervention. The NHL didn't have control over which players Vegas were going to pick. The teams themselves did.
 

Joe Hallenback

Moderator
Mar 4, 2005
15,357
21,337
Love this article....

Makes fun of "traditional" hockey men then praises the Knights whose team is built by "traditional" hockey men
 

tucker3434

HFBoards Sponsor
Sponsor
Apr 7, 2007
19,792
10,543
Atlanta, GA
Good for Vegas. I’m extremely jealous as my team has spent the better part of the last decade in the gutter. But I’d pump the breaks on calling them a model franchise. Model expansion franchise, absolutely. But mode franchises have staying power and we don’t know that they do yet.
 

nbwingsfan

Registered User
Dec 13, 2009
20,847
14,554
I've just come to terms that if they swept the entire playoffs and won a Stanley Cup this year people would still defend the expansion draft.

Absolutely unbelievable the mental gymnastics some of you people must go through to try to make this into some feel good story. They made the NHL look like a joke with their expansion draft conditions.

How do you explain them being viewed as a unanimous bottom 5 team after the draft?
 
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