Stanley Cup Final: Vegas Golden Knights vs. Florida Panthers
- Thread starter CarltonTheBear
- Start date
4EVRLEAFAN
Member
As a hockey fan not sure how I feel about an expansion team winning the Cup in only six years, on one hand they took some gambles that paid off but on the other they were given some big breaks to start out with and had a competitive team from day one, how's everyone feel about this?
Arn
Well-known member
Peter D. said:
That?s how we do it in the UK - the ?regular season? league winner is the national champion, then we have a playoff series after.
It?s genuinely much better imo and actually allows the best team to rise to the top over a much longer sample size than potentially a hot goalie winning 16/18 games or something.
Suppose the big difference is all the teams play each other the same number of times home and away.
Kin
Active member
4EVRLEAFAN said:
While they obviously got some very friendly expansion draft rules there's really no way to prevent an expansion team from becoming pretty competitive instantly just because of the realities of the cap. Having to spend to the minimum(and most expansion owners will be eager to not just spend the minimum) but without your own developed players to sign will mean any expansion team has a ton of money to play around with at the beginning. If you're going to put teams in new locations you don't want to replicate what's happened in Columbus or Phoenix or even dear departed Atlanta. You don't sell the sport with a perennial loser so I get trying to avoid that even if the friendly expansion draft AND the huge amount of money to spend is a bit of a double whammy.
Beyond that six years seems like about the right amount of time for any team to go from bad to contending so I don't think the timeline is all that odd.
Bender said:
Yup. And the expansion draft rules really didn't benefit Vegas THAT much. It was just dumb GMs doing them favour after favour after favour because they're dumb. Marchessault winning the Conn Smythe, ESPECIALLY against Florida, is absolutely beautiful.
bustaheims
Well-known member
Deebo said:
The prevailing theory is leaving Marchessault exposed was part of the price for Vegas taking on Smith's contract. At the time, both teams viewed it as more of a salary dump because of his inconsistent and, at time, underwhelming, production.
Deebo said:
Florida opted to protect 4 defencemen including Petrovic and Pysyk. That left both Marchessault and Smith unprotected. Vegas picked Marchessault and Smith was traded to Vegas as a literal cap dump because they reportedly needed to cut salary.
dappleganger
Active member
It was obviously galaxy brain stuff from Florida at the time.
Deebo said:
It's also just genuinely possible they didn't value Marchessault very highly and just preferred to keep their defence in tact. Marchessault was due for a massive raise at that point after scoring 30 goals for the first time in a breakout season for him. Maybe they thought it was a fluke season.
Either way, the expansion draft rules certainly didn't force them into a dumb decision there. They could have just exposed one of Petrovic/Psyk and protected Marchessault. Smith, even if he had to go, could have been traded elsewhere as a cap dump.
https://twitter.com/JeffVeillette/status/1668826361153110016
https://twitter.com/miketgould/status/1668846386702598145
Kin
Active member
Deebo said:
I could be wrong but those seem to be hand in hand here. Like at least some of those deals were the Knights taking on sketchy contracts for picks, right?
I'm not trying to knock what they did or anything but putting a team down in a league with a super restrictive hard cap and give them a blank slate is a huge boost.