Last night Vegas officially began their process of selecting their inaugural roster via the expansion draft. As with any general manager there were some good choices mixed in with some bad choices. That is par for this course. Things went exactly to script for the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Long-time Penguins netminder Marc-Andre Fleury is officially a Vegas Golden Knight
As anticipated the love and support for Marc-Andre Fleury in Pittsburgh was palpable
The reactions have been heartfelt and at times somber. The good news is that Marc-Andre Fleury didn't die! He actually got a job promotion. Emotions aside is what was best for both team and player.
Jim Rutherford ended up paying a second round pick in... 2020 for Vegas to take Fleury. I can't say I blame him. I wouldn't want any part of the goalie market right now. It's the most unpredictable trading market in the sport. The Penguins have officially gotten off easy as far as the expansion draft goes.
With Fleury's contract off the books the Penguins now have 20.7M to play around with this offseason and in the coming days/weeks I will attempt to spend some of that money.
Marc-Andre Fleury will be the face of the new franchise. Here are 30 of his new teammates
This is an underwhelming group. Yes, George McPhee isn't done yet. He is definitely going to be trading some of these players for more assets, but at what point would he have been better off just taking guys from the exposed list and not taking side deals? I think there was potential for the Golden Knights to clean up with the approach McPhee used, but early returns aren't great.
Shea Theodore is a promising prospect, but why take on Clayton Stoner's contract? You had the leverage, not Anaheim.
They took Luca Sbisa and Deryk Engelland. No there weren't any draft picks involved.
Flipping first round picks with the Jets isn't justification enough to take Chris Thorburn when players like Dano and Enstrom were available.
They voluntarily selected Cody Eakin and his three goals in 60 games. He will make 3.8M until 2020.
No Mrazek or Raanta?
Erik Haula instead of the defensemen Minnesota had available or Eric Staal's value contract? They did get Alex Tuch, but he's no sure thing considering he is currently below the 0.70 points per game threshold that can be predictive of future NHL success (he's at 0.64).
There were some good moves as well. We are of course talking about an NHL general manager. With most guys you are going to get as much good as you do bad with the choices that are made.
Florida has gone off the rails since promoting Dale Tallon. They lost two-thirds of a scoring line when they lost Jonathan Marchessault and Reilly Smith.
The Islanders paid a ton for Vegas to take Mikhail Grabovsky and Jean-Francois Berube. Vegas will get the #15 overall pick, a 2019 second round pick, and Jake Bischoff.
For taking on Jason Garrison's contract Vegas was able to acquire a 2017 second round pick, a 2018 fourth round pick, and Nikita Gusev who was well over a point per game in the KHL last year (which is really good for that league).
They got the face of the franchise they wanted and who they were going to take anyways, but correctly extorted Pittsburgh for a second round pick.
James Neal for free is a good deal in my book.
After sorting out all the good and bad choices the make or break variable in how Vegas has handled the expansion draft to this point will be their skills at the drafting table. Draft picks are great, but you have to hit on them. The more you have the better chance you have, but how much better? Steve Burtch of Sportsnet has done some good research on this.
They do not have a pick in the top three and only have one pick in the top ten. There aren't any guarantees with the drafting route. I feel as though they may have leaned to heavily with the draft pick approach as opposed to taking known talent.
Also from Burtch
They are going to have to beat the odds for this strategy to work which is fitting considering we are talking about Las Vegas.
More to come in the following days
Thanks for reading!
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