Posted on 05/21/2018 3:44:13 AM PDT by airborne
Storybook season that started with tragedy is four wins from championship
They talked about it ahead of time, just in case. The Vegas Golden Knights didn't have a captain. They were the epitome of a team. So if they defeated the Winnipeg Jets and won the Western Conference, who would accept the Clarence Campbell Bowl?
It had to be defenseman Deryk Engelland, because this storybook season has been about more than becoming the greatest expansion team of all-time, more than establishing the NHL in a new market and more than giving Las Vegas its first major league sports team.
(Excerpt) Read more at nhl.com ...
Compare the small 10+1 (skaters plus goalies) protection list in a 30-team NHL to the 1979 WHA-NHL "expansion" draft where each of the existing 17 NHL teams were allowed to protect 15+2 players and also had the right to sign many WHA players whose rights they held!
I did a quick search on other previous expansion drafts and came across the following:
1991 (1 team) ... 21 existing teams could protect 16 skaters and two goalies. There was also an odd "dispersal draft" this year, with the North Stars allowing the new San Jose Sharks to draft a number of players as part of the deal which allowed the North Stars owners to sell the team and then be awarded the expansion bid for San Jose.
1992 (2 teams) ... 21 of 22 existing teams could protect 14 skaters and 2 goalies (San Jose was exempt from the draft because they were an expansion team in 1991).
1993 (2 teams) ... 24 existing teams protected 14 skaters and 1 goalie.
1998 (1 team) ... 26 existing teams protected 14 skaters and 1 goalie, or 10 skaters and 2 goalies.
1999 (1 team) ... Same as 1998, with 26 existing teams (the Nashville Predators were exempt as a new arrival in 1998). Any team that lost a goalie in the 1998 expansion draft couldn't lose another one in 1999.
2000 (2 teams) ... Same as the prior two years, with the 26 teams in the NHL before the 1998 (all except Nashville and Atlanta) exposing players.
It's interesting to see how much less important the NHL seems to think protecting goalies has become in these expansion drafts. That seems to reflect my view that goaltenders have lost a lot of their value in the modern NHL.
I don't see the new ways of analyzing talent as a big advantage for an expansion team. That's an advantage that ANY team in hockey has right now -- and it's reflected in the interesting disconnect between player salaries and NHL playoff success in recent years. Heck -- look at last year's Pittsburgh Penguins. I thought they'd be a marginal team at best for a few years after they won the Cup in 2015-16. They had almost 60% of their salary cap space allocated to just six players, and 75% to their top nine players. And they won the Stanley Cup even with their best defenseman out for the entire playoffs.
That's all about advanced metrics -- like the NHL version of "Money Ball." It's also about a dilution of NHL talent combined with the elimination of the enforcer from the game -- which means depth has slowly become more important than talent in the NHL these days.
Problem with those early expansion drafts is they were designed to hose the expansion team and make sure they sucked as long as possible. That’s bad for the product and bad for the league.
Goaltending league wide has gotten too good. With so-so players having save percentages over 90 they’ve become fungible.
Analytics are a better advantage for an expansion team because they start from scratch. They can come in and say “these are the kinds of players we want” and go get them. They don’t have to clear out players that don’t fit that model, they aren’t carrying any crappy contracts, they odn’t have to worry about getting rid of fan favorites. Starting from scratch can be a huge advantage. Just look at how long it’s taken the Canucks to get out from under the mess their crappy GM who loved long term no trade contracts, heck they still aren’t out. All the analytics in the world can’t help the Canucks because of all that baggage.
Depth has always mattered. Even back in the high flying days, 3rd and 4th line scoring got you Cups. High talent first liners are greats, champions roll 4.
SuperBowls, World Series’, nothing like Playoff Hockey...and Game 7 Playoffs are simply the best.
I’m a long suffering Caps fan btw...so I’d like to see a great game and a game 7 in two days.
“Long suffering Caps fan”, that ain’t nuttin norton, try the Sabres if you want suffering:-)
A good case in point would be the regular 1993 draft. I picked it out at random just out of curiosity. Here you had a few recent expansion teams who were drafting at the top of every round because they were among the worst teams in the NHL in the 1992-93 season.
Ottawa drafted #1 and selected Alexandre Daigle out of the QMJHL. He'll go down as one of the all-time disappointments as a #1 pick. Eight of their remaining ten picks never played a single game in the NHL. And the one guy among the those next ten picks who had a solid NHL career was Pavol Demitra, who played fewer than 60 games over three seasons before he was traded to St. Louis.
The Tampa Bay Lightning had a similar experience in that draft. Chris Gratton had a half-decent NHL career, but was nowhere near as good as he should have been as the #3 overall pick. And their remaining ten picks played a grand total of fewer than 50 games (combined) in the NHL.
I think many of these expansion teams just didn't have the right people running the organizations.
I'm not sure depth always mattered -- especially when you had enforcers on the fourth line who didn't play a lot. It's actually hard to compare this over long periods of time, since it wasn't unusual for teams to roll three forward lines and two defense pairs as recently as the early 1990s. I was recently watching some epic playoff games between the Devils and Rangers in the 1994 Eastern Conference Finals, and I was shocked to see Mike Keenan putting four defensemen out there for most of the games.
The 1995 Devils were probably the first modern team to win a Stanley Cup while spreading its playing time fairly evenly across a full 18-man roster. Their "Crash Line" may have been the best fourth line ever to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Here's an interesting thought about the Golden Knights this season ...
Winning the Stanley Cup might end up being the worst thing that can happen to them in the long run. In my experience, the key to the success of an expansion team is their ability to cultivate a fan base as they build the roster and improve over time. The local interest in the team will grow as the team improves, and eventually they'll hope to see the organization put it all together and put a championship team on the ice. In that scenario, you'd hope to see a loyal fan base that will stick around while the team goes through some lean years and rebuilds.
If a new team wins right out of the gate, then I'm not sure how long the fans will hang around once they fall back to mediocrity over time.
It sounds preposterous, but this is pretty much what happened to the Colorado Avalanche. They weren't an expansion team, but when they moved from Quebec in 1996 they already had a formidable roster. They won the Stanley Cup in 1996 and remained one of the top teams in the NHL for another 5-6 years. Once the Joe Sakic era ended in the late 2000s it seemed like the team lost so much of its luster. I know they were decimated by the adoption of the salary cap after the 2004-05 lockout, losing Hall of Famers Peter Forsberg and Rob Blake to free agency. I think they've won a single playoff series in the last ten years, and their 12+ year long streak of home sellouts came to an end as well.
I think it was a joke, got retweeted all over the place.
Caps force Game 7, avoid epic choke, for now.
Vegas, remarkable, was the expansion draft too favorable towards them?
I believe the expansion draft was a perfect storm.
Vegas definitely got lucky with their goalie.
Seattle will be hoping for the same lucky storm when (if) their time comes.
We get our “feed” from a satellite so don't see how a local affiliate could override that. I searched the entire "gazillion", plus garbage channels to no avail. NO BROADCAST! I DID see a rerun during the day yesterday.
Probably an ‘on demand’ pay program on sat tv.
Not sure exactly how that works, but if you get a local NBC station on your sat, they can sub a different NBC feed for your usual local one. That’s how some sports on the networks are blocked from your local stations because of league blackout policies.
I hear you...but when you win the President’s cup twice in a row and get knocked out in Rd 1 and 2...you’d almost wish you were just really bad.
maybe the Caps have knocked off the hex with their defeat of the Pens this time. We’ll see in Game 7...I’m as tight as a sour pickle at this point.
CAPS
WIN !!
CAPS
WIN !!
Caps win 4-0, avoid the chokejob!
Good final matchup.
Two teams that never hoisted Lord Stanley.
A good goalie match up too.
You are a true gentleman airborne. Will you be moving to LV?
Cheers, Otter
Thanks for the kind words.
As I get older I often consider moving to warmer, dryer climates.
But for now the foothills of the PA Appalachians will remain my home.
I’m an Original Six or nothing fan———silly I know,but that’s the way I feel.
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What the heck happened to Tampa Bay at the end of this series?
Washington-Las Vegas is a much better series than it would have been with Tampa.
I think Vegas will win in 6. Incredible story.
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