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Post by ironhammer on May 29, 2018 11:15:05 GMT -5
So someone correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot recall an expansion team in it's first season making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals since the St. Louis Blues back in the 60's I think. So the fact that the Vegas Knights have accomplished this is quite an achievement. Of course, having players like Marc-Andre Fleury on it's roster certainly doesn't hurt, but even so, few would have expected this team to have gone so far in its very first season. And Las Vegas was not exactly known as a hockey heartland, being stuck in the middle of a desert. Hats off to Gerard Gallant.
What was their secret to their success?
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Post by dc on May 29, 2018 11:36:41 GMT -5
Our local sports writer, Patrick Reusse, is not a hockey guy, and is a bit of a crank and curmudgeon. I personally also think he's a pretty sharp guy.
He says it was the $500 million Vegas paid to the current owners that caused the draft to be set up in a positive way for the new franchise. He's the only one I've heard say this but it makes a certain amount of sense to me.
The price of being in the NHL increased to $80 million when Nashville was awarded a team in 1998. Atlanta paid the same expansion fee when hockey returned to that city in 1999. And when Minnesota got its NHL team back along with Columbus in 2000, it was still $80 million to join, as the NHL grew to its current 30-team league. That would be the last time the league expanded. Until now.
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Post by Sorry Ass Sal on May 29, 2018 12:23:27 GMT -5
Maybe Seattle will get a double expansion of NHL and NBA.
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Post by vbprisoner on May 29, 2018 12:44:16 GMT -5
So someone correct me if I am wrong, but I cannot recall an expansion team in it's first season making it all the way to the Stanley Cup Finals since the St. Louis Blues back in the 60's I think. So the fact that the Vegas Knights have accomplished this is quite an achievement. Of course, having players like Marc-Andre Fleury on it's roster certainly doesn't hurt, but even so, few would have expected this team to have gone so far in its very first season. And Las Vegas was not exactly known as a hockey heartland, being stuck in the middle of a desert. Heads off to Gerard Gallant. What was their secret to their success? If you look at the expansion draft that was available to the LVK it was very advantageous. Every team could only protect so many of their own players and LVK could pick from the unprotected players and only take one, maybe two at the most from one team. Every team will protect the first line players and goalie, which basically opened up second and third line players to LVK. All of the first, second, and third line of the LVK players were all good second line players at their former teams. So basically you take some top second line players and make them first line, then take top second line players and make them second line, and then take some top second line players and make them third line, and in some cases teams have a forth line and they are going against second line players again. Now add a very good seasoned goalie and you have the deepest team in the league. The LVK seem to always have an advantage when the second, third, and forth lines are on the ice. That is basically 2/3 of the game. They paid a steep price to the owners and got a very favorable expansion draft that it appears the league and owners did not take into consideration how one-sided it could become. If there is ever another new franchise added and an expansion draft created they will probably put the players in buckets and the new team will be required to pull a certain number of players from each bucket.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2018 13:37:38 GMT -5
St. Louis is not a comparable example, btw. That year, an expansion team HAD to make the finals. It just happened to be St. Louis, but it had to be an expansion team.
It's never happened before in any major league.
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Post by mikegarrison on May 29, 2018 15:41:46 GMT -5
Not that existing owners have a great incentive to make an expansion draft fair, but one way to do it would be this:
1st round: All teams get to protect one player. Expansion team(s) pick one player. 2nd round: All teams get to protect one more player. Expansion team(s) pick one more player. Etc. Any team with a player picked from it becomes off-limits until all teams have had a player picked from them -- then all teams become available again.
This would basically mean that an expansion team would end up being built like an existing team, with access to some of the best players at first, then only access to the "middle" players, and finally only access to the last players.
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Post by Sorry Ass Sal on May 29, 2018 18:39:32 GMT -5
Not that existing owners have a great incentive to make an expansion draft fair, but one way to do it would be this: 1st round: All teams get to protect one player. Expansion team(s) pick one player. 2nd round: All teams get to protect one more player. Expansion team(s) pick one more player. Etc. Any team with a player picked from it becomes off-limits until all teams have had a player picked from them -- then all teams become available again. This would basically mean that an expansion team would end up being built like an existing team, with access to some of the best players at first, then only access to the "middle" players, and finally only access to the last players. I agree that would make it 'fair', but no way it ever gets passed because teams like the Lightning would lose probably Kucherov in that first round. If not him, Stamkos. That would severely hamper all that they have built. But as you said, owners wouldn't have interest in doing it and it would provide zero incentive to expand.
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Post by Northern lights on May 29, 2018 18:41:55 GMT -5
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said he had no apologies for setting up the expansion draft in such a way to make Vegas competitive. The price was 500 million and the reward was instant competitiveness. I do not think anyone expected this.
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Post by Sorry Ass Sal on May 29, 2018 18:44:19 GMT -5
NHL commissioner Gary Bettman said he had no apologies for setting up the expansion draft in such a way to make Vegas competitive. The price was 500 million and the reward was instant competitiveness. I do not think anyone expected this. I think that's good though. The Devil Rays suffered a long time in the MLB. That was not pleasant to see.
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Post by mikegarrison on May 29, 2018 18:59:37 GMT -5
In baseball, a fair number of players have no-trade clauses. Either they negotiate them or they get it automatically by the five and ten rule (ten years in the league, five years with your current team = automatic no-trade status). So would these players be allowed to veto being picked in an expansion draft?
I guess the last time MLB expanded was when they added Tampa Bay and Arizona. As far as I could tell, teams were allowed to protect any 15 players they wanted. I didn't see any mention of having to protect players with no-trade status.
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Post by ironhammer on May 29, 2018 19:12:26 GMT -5
St. Louis is not a comparable example, btw. That year, an expansion team HAD to make the finals. It just happened to be St. Louis, but it had to be an expansion team. It's never happened before in any major league. Fair enough. The NHL was a lot smaller and quite a different animal back then.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2018 19:15:44 GMT -5
St. Louis is not a comparable example, btw. That year, an expansion team HAD to make the finals. It just happened to be St. Louis, but it had to be an expansion team. It's never happened before in any major league. Fair enough. The NHL was a lot smaller and quite a different animal back then. And they put all the expansion teams in one division.
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Post by Deleted on May 29, 2018 19:17:47 GMT -5
Interesting. All 4 games were decided by a goal, although Montreal did sweep.
I had also completely forgotten Cleveland had an NHL franchise.
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Post by Sorry Ass Sal on May 29, 2018 19:20:31 GMT -5
Interesting. All 4 games were decided by a goal, although Montreal did sweep. I had also completely forgotten Cleveland had an NHL franchise. I never really realized they didn't. I guess they don't want another historical loser.
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Post by Northern lights on May 29, 2018 19:22:51 GMT -5
Cleveland Barons I think they were called.
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