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NHL Hockey Expansion Protected Lists are Released for Vegas
NHL.com ^ | 6/18/17 | NHL

Posted on 06/18/2017 12:10:45 PM PDT by Yaelle

The list of protected and unprotected players of each NHL team is out. See link. The new Vegas team, the Golden Knights, can pick one player or goalie from each of the 30 existing teams according to some rules. And there will be trading in the draft on Weds as well. Interrresting.

Airborne, I am going to use the hockey ping list but if that is a faux pas, please let me know. I apologize in advance.


TOPICS: Sports
KEYWORDS: expansion; hockey; protected; vegas
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To: xp38

Yeah, no snow on the ground here ever. Went to the outdoor hockey game at Dodger Stadium with Kings / Ducks on New Years or around then, and never put on the down costs we brought. Hockey in June is just fine although for me waterproof mascara is a must - I’m emotional around that Cup.


21 posted on 06/18/2017 6:02:56 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Yaelle

Coats

Edit feature would be nice


22 posted on 06/18/2017 6:03:16 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Dr. Sivana

I remember reading a Sports Illustrated pre-season article back from the days of 21 teams, and it had a section with a line to the effect of “and here we have the five teams we predict witll not make the playoffs, which in hockey is like not making the telephone book.”

I also recall at least one season where the team with the second worst overall record made the playoffs, because they happened to be in the same five-team division as the worst team.


23 posted on 06/18/2017 6:13:59 PM PDT by Hieronymus (It is terrible to contemplate how few politicians are hanged. --G. K. Chesterton)
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To: Hieronymus
I also recall at least one season where the team with the second worst overall record made the playoffs, because they happened to be in the same five-team division as the worst team.

Sounds like the old Smythe Division, where you could have won the division with a 40% win record. If I recall, the teams played each other an equal # of times regardless of the division. Each team played each other team 20 times.
24 posted on 06/18/2017 6:21:49 PM PDT by Dr. Sivana (There is no salvation in politics.)
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To: Yaelle

The wiki page for it is worth a read.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanley_Cup


25 posted on 06/18/2017 6:29:47 PM PDT by xp38
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To: Dr. Sivana

Yeah, it did diminish the regular season when ~75% of the teams got to go to the playoffs every year. If there was an upside, it did mean almost every year the same teams would be playing each other, which created intense rivalries that have faded with more teams and the wildcard. Boston v Hartford, Chicago v Minnesota, Calgary v Winnipeg. You’d think LA and Anaheim would be a great rivalry, but they’ve only played each other 1-2 times in the playoffs in the last 20 years.


26 posted on 06/18/2017 7:08:24 PM PDT by Wayne07
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To: Yaelle
Not many surprises.

A few head-scratchers: Marchessault, Jagr, Mrazek, Vatanen left unprotected. Pysik, Howard, Bieksa, Reaves protected by their respective teams.

Vegas won't be a 70 game loser. Parity rules.

27 posted on 06/18/2017 7:59:17 PM PDT by rfp1234 (DinosorosExtinction)
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To: Yaelle

When I was in Connecticut, I used to go to Goldie Howe’s restaurant. I played against Kevin Dineen, when his dad was coach of the Whalers. Also, my family business had a few Whalers players as customers, too.


28 posted on 06/18/2017 8:07:01 PM PDT by Deplorable American1776 (Proud to be a DeplorableAmerican with a Deplorable Family...even the dog is DEPLORABLE :-))
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To: xp38

Been sitting here reading it. Love the history and the stories. Thanks. When my oldest was a little hockey player we read so many books and bios and stats but I have forgotten so much.


29 posted on 06/18/2017 8:49:30 PM PDT by Yaelle
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To: Deplorable American1776

For the life of me, I’m trying to figure out why the NHL insists on pursuing this losing strategy of putting teams in cities that have no fan support for an NHL team.


30 posted on 06/19/2017 3:53:29 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: Dr. Sivana

I would prefer to see the NHL playoffs end by the time the World Hockey Championships begin in early May.


31 posted on 06/19/2017 3:55:59 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: rfp1234
It's almost like there's a science to an expansion draft. The players that get left unprotected are typically veterans and/or players with huge contracts who have become a drag on the team over time. With a salary cap in place, teams will try to protect players who have favorable contracts that provide good value to the team at reasonable salaries.

Other unprotected players are those who their team expects to lose in free agency anyway. Jagr, for example, has been playing under one-year contracts over the last few years -- and he'll be a free agent on July 1st, so Florida stands a good chance of losing him to another team anyway.

Something else to keep in mind is that any player who has a no-movement clause in his contract MUST be protected in the expansion draft unless he agrees to waive that clause (like in the case of Marc-Andre Fleury of the Penguins).

32 posted on 06/19/2017 4:05:37 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: Alberta's Child

You mean like Ottowa? Some places have trouble because they made bad decisions about things like their arena. Phoenix, Florida and Ottowa seem to fall into that category. These teams play in arenas that make it hard to be a fan.
Las Vegas won’t have that problem. They’ll live or die if Vegas can rally around them as a real community. So far it looks good with sold out season tickets and a waiting list.
I agree with Bettman’s push into the sun belt. That’s where the young(er) people are. The entire north (and that includes Europe) aren’t having enough children to keep their countries going much less a sport.


33 posted on 06/19/2017 6:28:34 AM PDT by Varda
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To: Varda
Ottawa's problem isn't just the location of their arena. Because it's a government city they also don't have the same level of corporate support you get in other major cities. There isn't a single company among the 50 largest companies in Canada with its headquarters in Ottawa, which is amazing when you consider that even Saskatoon -- with a population of about 200,000 -- has one.

Las Vegas will attract fans as long as its a novelty, and if they improve over time and become a winner they'll do very well. That's not the hard part, though. The real challenge is after they've become a winning team and then they have to go through a rebuilding period. Sun Belt teams are notorious for having fickle, fair-weather fan support. It's easy to draw fans when you're a winner, but it takes a strong hockey market to get 15,000 or more fans to come out to see a mediocre team. There are a lot of places in North America where a team can do this, but it's not going to happen in the Sun Belt.

34 posted on 06/19/2017 6:50:50 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: Alberta's Child

I’ve read that about Ottawa. Also that they recently rescinded the ability of government officials to use taxpayer money for hockey games. It sounds like this may be a team on the move if they don’t make the situation more fan friendly.

As far as Las Vegas, I’m going to give it time. It seems like a Columbus style situation to me. I was reading the Vegas web sites when the team was announced and most remarks were about the team being for the people of the city. Most outside fans were saying this was a tourist attraction hence unstable. I think the season ticket holder base suggests the reality is the former not the latter.

Most American cities will support teams on a fickle basis. Win and they will come. Lose and they don’t. I live in the Pittsburgh area, we just had 650,000 people at the parade. The moment the team looks shaky you won’t be able to give tickets away. Yet, at the moment it’s one of the most stable US franchises. It’s just the way sports fans are.


35 posted on 06/19/2017 7:38:26 AM PDT by Varda
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To: wingtip

Yep, brain fart. Wrong ‘dale came out. Thanks.


36 posted on 06/19/2017 7:41:09 AM PDT by discostu (You are what you is, and that's all it is, you ain't what you're not, so see what you got.)
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To: Varda
I've always believed that there are no more than about 8-10 solid NHL markets in North America. These would include the "Original Six" (Toronto, Montreal, New York, Boston, Chicago and Detroit), plus Philadelphia, Edmonton, Buffalo, and maybe Calgary now. These are cities where the home team could attract 15,000 fans for a late-season game even if the team is out of playoff contention.

There are a few things coming into play here that have wreaked havoc on NHL franchises:

1. With its strong push for national television revenue that began in the 1990s, the NHL made a decision that effectively put a higher value on large cities with few hockey fans over small cities with many hockey fans. The relocation of the original Winnipeg Jets to Phoenix was a perfect example of this. Winnipeg had about 400,000 hardcore hockey fans among about 600,000 people at the time -- but Phoenix was considered a better NHL market because it had about 4 million people, even if hardly any of them were hockey fans.

2. There are many smaller cities that might be great hockey markets, but the NHL has simply priced many fans out of the game. This is why teams from large cities with a lot of corporate support have the most traction in the NHL, because that type of support doesn't get priced out as easily.

3. As strange as this may sound, some metro areas have enormous fan bases but aren't very strong NHL markets. This is because these places simply have too many other less expensive options for hockey fans. The Twin Cities of Minnesota is a perfect case in point. That may be the best hockey market in the world, but they lost the North Stars to Dallas back in the 1990s because they didn't have the support of fans who didn't want to pay NHL prices when they could attend NCAA games, high school games, and even children's games for a lot less money. The Minnesota state high school hockey tournament will often attract 18,000 fans to the Exel Center in St. Paul for days at a time every March, but when the North Stars were there they didn't have a strong fan base at all.

37 posted on 06/19/2017 7:55:09 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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To: Alberta's Child

I don’t think the “original six” are immune to losing . Toronto lost their sellout streak a couple years before Matthews was drafted. Chicago couldn’t draw flies during the last years of “Dollar Bill” Wirtz’s ownership. Even Detroit while winning had plenty of tickets available during the last Stanley Cup runs.

The other points are about the NHL being a business. The percentage of hockey fans is only part of the big picture and apparently not enough to make the business viable. That means they want corporate support and the high prices they can pay and a population high enough to have people pay season ticket prices . If the population doesn’t want to pay, it isn’t an NHL hockey market.

After all star players are rightfully well paid, the cost to run a winning franchise is high. Also the value of the Canadian dollar plays a huge roll in the viability of markets up north. The pay is in US dollars (or indexed to) even in Canada.

For those who don’t want to pay NHL prices, there’s juniors, the AHL, the ECHL, college and high school. I’m lucky I live in an area near all those. There is also free. Hockey players practice and scrimmage in the summers.


38 posted on 06/19/2017 9:11:48 AM PDT by Varda
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To: Yaelle

Tease!


39 posted on 06/19/2017 9:12:01 AM PDT by airborne (I don't always scream at the TV but when I do it's hockey playoffs season!)
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To: Varda

Right — those old teams aren’t immune to losing, but you really have to run a dysfunctional franchise for years before your fan support starts to erode. Detroit is probably a function of a different factor: the team was so good for so long that anything short of a trip to the Stanley Cup Finals was seen as a failure. The New Jersey Devils faced a similar problem in New Jersey after the early 2000s, too.


40 posted on 06/19/2017 9:54:26 AM PDT by Alberta's Child ("I was elected to represent the citizens of Pittsburgh, not Paris." -- President Trump, 6/1/2017)
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