An embarrassment for the NHL

An embarrassment for the NHL

An embarrassment for the NHL
- nyr4life99

Say it again, I didn't here it the (frank)ING SECOND time.

An embarrassment for the NHL
- nyr4life99

There's plenty more to be embarrassed about if you are the NHL.

Why is all this crying going on now? Why wasn't this all brought up at the season start??

If it's such a joke, and they were "handed a gold mine" like some idiots are currently saying, then where was the outcry right after the expansion draft and before the season started? Oh wait, because you thought they'd suck too, and you waited until they start to win and have a more successful season than whoever your favorite team is to start crying about how they had a "favorable" expansion draft. Nobody expected most of their players to have the career seasons that they're having. Hindsight bias my friends.

In reality, not a single person had them making the playoffs(let alone winning their division and going to the cup). Let's give them credit for what is really happening here, a bunch of players who teams felt comfortable losing banded together and dug deep to prove everybody wrong. Great job by McPhee and staff for putting this roster together, awesome job by Gallant for getting the players to completely buy in, and bravo to the players for playing like they have something to prove.

Happy for Flower, Neal, Engo, and Reaves.

Happy for Flower, Neal, Engo, and Reaves.
- Emperor Filonius

But not Perron?

VEGAS BABY.

Who would the Vegas fans like to see the Knights play in the Stanley Cup Final - Tampa or Washington? Do you think they have a better chance of beating 1 over the other, would 1 team make for a better narrative to the series over the other? Would 1 teams style be better then the other out of the East? Etc.

Interested to find out what others think, I hope the Bolts make it there to go against them but they still have a huge task of trying to close out Washington.

no, they weren't. show me a single source that had them even sniffing a cup before the season started. I'll wait
- bulet13

Game. Set and match.

An embarrassment for the NHL
- nyr4life99

Oh please.

Good for them. A bunch of players are having career years.. as is typical for teams that make it to the final.

The draft was anything but a blank cheque for assembling a contender. It gave them a chance to select players with trade value. Half the GM's in the league lost their minds and gave up too much. Look no further than Florida. Look at Minny.. look at any of the teams that gave McPhee first rounders. Vegas was entitled to only one player per team. The 11th best in most cases. That alone does not make a contender.

Hope they win it all. Hope the GM's that let themselves get fleeced last summer are fired and never manage hockey teams again. Go Vegas.

Today @ 7:54 PM ET
no, they weren't. show me a single source that had them even sniffing a cup before the season started. I'll wait
- bulet13


Dude...

-EVERYONE knew Karlsson was a 1st line center

-EVERYONE knew Perron would have a career year

-After a 14 goal year followed by a 15 goal year, everyone knew that 7th round pick, Eric Haula would score 29 goals and post 55 points.

-EVERYONE knew the proven defensive star Colin Miller was due for 41 points

-Hell, as a Pens fan, even I KNEW that Fleury was due for the his best season ever

They were gifted this poop

Did everyone know they’d go threw6 goaltenders?

They should’ve been in the poopter going for Dahlin. They found a way to win despite the extremely huge losses in net. They used being called bottom of the bucket as a great motivator,

GO KNIGHTS!!!!!!!

Good for them. A bunch of players are having career years.. as is typical for teams that make it to the final.

The draft was anything but a blank cheque for assembling a contender. It gave them a chance to select players with trade value. Half the GM's in the league lost their minds and gave up too much. Look no further than Florida. Look at Minny.. look at any of the teams that gave McPhee first rounders. Vegas was entitled to only one player per team. The 11th best in most cases. That alone does not make a contender.

Hope they win it all. Hope the GM's that let themselves get fleeced last summer are fired and never manage hockey teams again. Go Vegas.
- leafsfann

It wasn’t even the 11th best from each team. Remember that the two year pros and draftees were also all automatically protected. So in most cases they got teams 15-16th best. For example the oilers had 11 on the list plus McDavid, Nurse, Caggiula, Benning, Puljujarvi all didn’t need protection.

That Vegas roster is just not that great. Two legit proven top 6 forwards, a bunch of bottom 6 forwards, no top pairing Dmen and a lot of them were 3rd pairing guys. Their workhorse #1 goalie was written off by everybody, had lost his job to a 20 year old and no one considered him elite anymore. The coach had been sacked from his previous job because he didn't embrace advanced stats. But they keep on winning and smoking the Jets in 5 is incredible. Anyone who says some kind of fix was in is nuts. This team just goes out and plays the team game like a team and never takes a shift off.

An embarrassment for the NHL
- nyr4life99

They got, on average the 9th or 10th best player on every team, not including any of the young players with under 3 years experience

So, in reality, something like the 12th best on average

Where they really capitalized, was on

Florida's stupidity (We'll let you take Marchessailt if you take Smith off our Hands)

Minnesota's stupidity (Please don't take Dumba, we'll give you Tuch if you take Haula instead)

Anaheim (Here's Shea Theodore if you take Stoner off our hands)

Columbus (Take Karlsson, get this Clarkson contract off our books)

Pittsburgh (We're in a goalie pinch, here's MAF who no other team offered to trade for when Rutherford originally tried to move him)

There's 7 key Vegas players that teams CHOSE to give away to keep other (in theory) better players

An embarrassment for the NHL
- nyr4life99

Delete your account.

It wasn’t even the 11th best from each team. Remember that the two year pros and draftees were also all automatically protected. So in most cases they got teams 15-16th best. For example the oilers had 11 on the list plus McDavid, Nurse, Caggiula, Benning, Puljujarvi all didn’t need protection.
- Iggysbff

You're correct, sir. How dare you not buy into the narrative that they were gifted a championship calibre roster, though

You're correct, sir. How dare you not buy into the narrative that they were gifted a championship calibre roster, though
- leafsfann

alternative facts

In 2000, teams were allowed to protect 15 players. 9 forwards, 5 defensemen, 1 goalie. In 2017 teams were allowed to protect 8. F-ing 8 players. Oh yeah. And there were 2 teams picking from what scraps were left. Vegas had their pick of a top 6 forward or top 4 defensemen off EVERY NHL TEAM. Teams were surrendering draft picks because they couldn’t afford to lose the quality players they were endangered of losing. This whole process was a goddamn joke
- BringNYIhome

Don't be a baby!

The owner of an expansion team spending half a billion isn't going to want the 15th on any teams depth chart to compete.

That being said, the 9th player on the depth chart isn't going to be the show-stopper, but at least it gave management something better to work with for HALF A BILLION DOLLARS!

Also, all the teams could lose was ONE player... and if they wanted to save that player they could have made a deal with them ala Anaheim. So there was that...

But before you get all maudlin on "favoritism" tell me this...at the beginning of the year would you have smacked $500 down as Vegas winning the cup with the players they ended up getting? No? Well that $500 would net you $100,000 if you did and they won!

Would you make that bet today when offered the same odds and still talk smack about all the favoritism?

Didn't think so....

Vegas is the real deal and they didn't get hand outs.....

Nashville really (frank)ed this one up.

Haters hate, but to say they were gifted is some kind of joke.
Their coach was rejected by that storied franchise in Fla and then robbed them of 2 players, Karllson was never given a chance in Columbus, and NOBODY saw this coming, Nate Schmidt, cmon half of you said they blew it not taking Grubaur, Neal Ok but he isn't even top line anymore. The rest of the d corp were 2nd and 3rd pairings, don't try to say they weren't. Then a bunch of fillers, just cause some of us have GMs that can't see their own junk, um teams, and have been mired in mediocrity for years, some for decades, doesn't mean this team doesn't deserve everything they got. Nobdoy handed it to them, and the doubters and the haters I do believe is what has driven this club to where it stands today.

One of the stupidest things I've EVER seen in sports. Good luck getting a bunch of newbies at the buffet to stick around after they started their meal with the roast beef and dessert. Before the Blue Jays won their first world series they set attendance records. 2 years later you couldn't count all the empty seats.

All this proves is that hockey is the sport where talent is not as important to winning as we think it is.

Kinda makes you doubt how much some of the players on more talented teams really want to win.

Go fuch yourself Iggysbff