Rite of Spring 2018-“What happens in the playoffs stays in the playoffs”

[Sport]

11 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

 

 

There is no doubt the expansion rules were tilted more in favor of the Knights, but I am just sick of hearing they got gifted a SC winning squad.   

 

Sorry? That's the reality. They got all their best players through a draft where they were literally given those players for nothing. Those players have proven to be a cup contending team therefore they were gifted a cup contender. 

 

11 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

I guess I don't understand your 9th best player argument, at all.   Having a team of AT-BEST third liners is hardly a formula for winning, let alone winning the division and possible Conference. 

 

1. they got a bunch of guys who were better than at best third liners. 2. It's pretty basic math. Star forwards play at most 1/3 of the game, star defensemen play, at most, half the game and due to over-expansion they're spread way more thin than they used to e, which means depth of your lineup is what matters most. You neutralize the other team's start player and exploit the holes of the opponent's roster when you get your opportunities and you can win a lot of hockey games. The 16/17 Blue Jackets did this as well - not a lot of big name players, but rolled 4 lines and took advantage of tired teams in the 3rd periods. 

 

What the expansion draft really did for the Knights was it gave them a roster without any glaring holes so when their fourth line or "9th best players" plays the opponents fourth line with their "18th, 19th, and 20th" best players then there's a matchup advantage in VGK's favor. 

 

11 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

Vadim Shipachyov was supposed to be their best player... 

 

The Knights made the best of their situation and should be given praise for their success.  Great coaching and GM work enabled this team to get this far, not Bettman or $500M.

 

Gerard Gallant is a fine hockey coach, but very little of this has to do with him, McPhee might actually prove detrimental to the team with the future cap space problems he's created. No the expansion fee and Bettman figuring out since NSH, ATL, CBJ, and MIN that it's bad business to dump on new markets trying to grow the game is why they got the generous rules. Nothing more. 

[crashcarson15]

5 minutes ago, charger77 said:

 

Hell, looks like Columbus wanted Vegas to take Karlsson off of their hands. 

 

 

 

Columbus Oh --- In exchange for selecting forward William Karlsson in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, the Columbus Blue Jackets have traded their 2017 first round pick, 24th overall, a second round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft and forward David Clarkson to the Vegas Golden Knights, club General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen announced tonight.

"We knew a player we didn't want to lose was going to be taken in this year's Expansion Draft, but our goal was to try to keep the core of our team intact," said Kekalainen. "While we didn't want to lose William Karlsson as he has been a good player for us, we believe this deal keeps our core group together and gives us additional financial flexibility to build on the success we had last season."

The quote literally says (multiple times!) they didn't want to lose Karlsson, but they were effectively put in a position where they could either:

• Let Vegas take Josh Anderson, the third-best player from a four-player group of guys under 25 who were expected to be long-term key contributors on the team
• Work out a deal so Vegas took William Karlsson, the fourth-best player from said group, and at the same time, get out from underneath a bunch of dead money tied up in a player who will never play hockey again

 

If the expansion draft didn't happen, the Blue Jackets were not going to be shopping Karlsson around on the trade market last summer. The point of the trade was not to get rid of Karlsson, but to keep Anderson around. That's a very important distinction.

[Sport]

1 minute ago, charger77 said:

 

Hell, looks like Columbus wanted Vegas to take Karlsson off of their hands. 

 

 

 

Columbus Oh --- In exchange for selecting forward William Karlsson in the 2017 NHL Expansion Draft, the Columbus Blue Jackets have traded their 2017 first round pick, 24th overall, a second round pick in the 2019 NHL Draft and forward David Clarkson to the Vegas Golden Knights, club General Manager Jarmo Kekalainen announced tonight.

"We knew a player we didn't want to lose was going to be taken in this year's Expansion Draft, but our goal was to try to keep the core of our team intact," said Kekalainen. "While we didn't want to lose William Karlsson as he has been a good player for us, we believe this deal keeps our core group together and gives us additional financial flexibility to build on the success we had last season."

 

1 minute ago, CreamSoda said:

 

And boy, this sounds like a team desperate to KEEP Karlsson:

• The Columbus Blue Jackets traded their first-round pick in the 2017 NHL Entry Draft, a second-round pick in the 2019 NHL Entry Draft and David Clarkson in exchange for Vegas selecting William Karlsson.

 

 

"We knew a player we didn't want to lose was going to be taken in this year's Expansion Draft, but our goal was to try to keep the core of our team intact,"

 

They didn't want to lose him. He was merely the victim of too few protected slots on a deep team THANKS TO OVERLY GENEROUS EXPANSION DRAFT RULES. That deal wasn't to get rid of him. That deal was so Vegas wouldn't take Josh Anderson and even now I'd do the same thing 100 more times (because Karlsson's shooting percentage will regress and VGK is going to have to pay him an assload). Those are two very different scenarios.

 

Under the expansion draft rules that we got in 2000 William Karlsson would've been a protected player or at the very least would've had a trade worked out to keep him and would've played in Columbus in 17/18. This isn't hard. 

[Sport]

3 minutes ago, crashcarson15 said:

The quote literally says (multiple times!) they didn't want to lose Karlsson, but they were effectively put in a position where they could either:

• Let Vegas take Josh Anderson, the third-best player from a four-player group of guys under 25 who were expected to be long-term key contributors on the team
• Work out a deal so Vegas took William Karlsson, the fourth-best player from said group, and at the same time, get out from underneath a bunch of dead money tied up in a player who will never play hockey again

 

If the expansion draft didn't happen, the Blue Jackets were not going to be shopping Karlsson around on the trade market last summer. The point of the trade was not to get rid of Karlsson, but to keep Anderson around. That's a very important distinction.

 

BUT 40 GOALS WHAT A BUNCHA IDIOTS! 

 

you beat me to this and summed it up way better. I'd still make the exact same trade based on very good odds that Karlsson falls back to a slightly more normal stat-line. William Karlsson is the best example of what I'm talking about with "9th best player". The 9th best player on every NHL team is a very good hockey player, a whole team of those is going to be tough to play against. 

[CreamSoda]

3 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

 

Sorry? That's the reality. They got all their best players through a draft where they were literally given those players for nothing. Those players have proven to be a cup contending team therefore they were gifted a cup contender. 

 

 

1. they got a bunch of guys who were better than at best third liners. 2. It's pretty basic math. Star forwards play at most 1/3 of the game, star defensemen play, at most, half the game and due to over-expansion they're spread way more thin than they used to e, which means depth of your lineup is what matters most. You neutralize the other team's start player and exploit the holes of the opponent's roster when you get your opportunities and you can win a lot of hockey games. The 16/17 Blue Jackets did this as well - not a lot of big name players, but rolled 4 lines and took advantage of tired teams in the 3rd periods. 

 

What the expansion draft really did for the Knights was it gave them a roster without any glaring holes so when their fourth line or "9th best players" plays the opponents fourth line with their "18th, 19th, and 20th" best players then there's a matchup advantage in VGK's favor. 

 

 

Gerard Gallant is a fine hockey coach, but very little of this has to do with him, McPhee might actually prove detrimental to the team with the future cap space problems he's created. No the expansion fee and Bettman figuring out since NSH, ATL, CBJ, and MIN that it's bad business to dump on new markets trying to grow the game is why they got the generous rules. Nothing more. 

 

 

Sorry but it's not.   Taking the 9th best player from 30 teams is not Stanley Cup winning team.   If that were the case, GMs would have made those trades years ago.  If its basic math, why haven't all GMs traded their stars for 3rd liners and #4 Dman...

 

Dude, listen to yourself.  The arguments make no sense.  Why dont the Jackets trade Seth Jones for 3 3rd liners...

[CreamSoda]

31 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

 

BUT 40 GOALS WHAT A BUNCHA IDIOTS! 

 

you beat me to this and summed it up way better. I'd still make the exact same trade based on very good odds that Karlsson falls back to a slightly more normal stat-line. William Karlsson is the best example of what I'm talking about with "9th best player". The 9th best player on every NHL team is a very good hockey player, a whole team of those is going to be tough to play against. 

 

The gap between 1st, 2nd best player to 9th best player is WAY WAY WAY wider than the gap from 9th to 18th.   

[JayMac]

6 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

 

The gap between 1st, 2nd best player to 9th best player is WAY WAY WAY wider than the gap from 9th to 18th.   

I am going to chime in...

 

You don't need a roster chock full of 1st or 2nd best players. If you have the opportunity to select a full roster of 9th best players, you're team should be above average at best. They were also very fortunate to pick up a guy like Fleury. 

 

I give them credit for the success so far with the regular season and the first 2 rounds of the playoffs but they were afforded a lot of this opportunity. I'm not bitter or jealous. This is jyst how I see it. Trust me, as a Flyers fan, the Knights have no effect on me, nor did they have any effect on my favorite team.

[Sport]

1 hour ago, CreamSoda said:

 

 

Sorry but it's not.   Taking the 9th best player from 30 teams is not Stanley Cup winning team. 

 

Their on-ice performance disagrees. You said they weren't gifted a cup contender and yet they're in the conference finals with a team full of players they were literally gifted. I don't know how much more simple I can break that down. 

 

Quote

If that were the case, GMs would have made those trades years ago.  If its basic math, why haven't all GMs traded their stars for 3rd liners and #4 Dman...

 

Because that's not what I'm arguing, dude. GM's are always trying to make trades to add depth to buoy star players. Because of the cap and the size of the league the key to winning in today's NHL is finding cheap players playing in slots and situations where they are frequently better than their opponent they're matched up with. That's the depth everyone is trying to find. That's why Vegas wins. Not the top half of their lineup, but the bottom half. The problem is it's hard to add depth in the middle of an ongoing roster cycle when depth isn't handed to you all at once via an expansion draft.

 

Quote

Dude, listen to yourself.  The arguments make no sense.  Why dont the Jackets trade Seth Jones for 3 3rd liners...

 

The argument makes perfect sense. The Knights exploit matchup advantages deep in the lineup because their fourth liners were second and third liners on their old teams, which means when matched up against their opponents' third and fourth lines they have the matchup advantage. I'm not saying don't get star players or trade all your stars. If you have a chance to acquire an all-star you absolutely should. I'm saying in the absence of a star player a roster without a glaring hole is just as good if not better than a roster with a couple star players but weaknesses throughout the rest of the lineup (such as Edmonton). 

 

Vegas plays in waves with a lot of speed because they can use everybody and late in games they're not as tired as the top lines of the opponents who've had to play more minutes throughout the night. It's not complicated and it's far less romantic than this cinderella fairy tale everyone wants to paint it as. 

 

 

[CreamSoda]

Just now, jmac11281 said:

I am going to chime in...

 

You don't need a roster chock full of 1st or 2nd best players. If you have the opportunity to select a full roster of 9th best players, you're team should be above average at best. They were also very fortunate to pick up a guy like Fleury. 

 

I give them credit for the success so far with the regular season and the first 2 rounds of the playoffs but they were afforded a lot of this opportunity. I'm not bitter or jealous. This is jyst how I see it. Trust me, as a Flyers fan, the Knights have no effect on me, nor did they have any effect on my favorite team.

 

I agree the team should be average, but not a SC contender.  They made a lot of smart moves along the way to get here.   If a team full of "9th best players" were the key to winning SC, then GMs should trade away all their star players this offseason.  That simply isn't the case though.

 

And having a ton of career years surely helped.  It will be most interesting to see how they do NEXT year.

[CreamSoda]

4 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

 

Their on-ice performance disagrees. You said they weren't gifted a cup contender and yet they're in the conference finals with a team full of players they were literally gifted. I don't know how much more simple I can break that down. 

 

 

Because that's not what I'm arguing, dude. GM's are always trying to make trades to add depth to buoy star players. Because of the cap and the size of the league the key to winning in today's NHL is finding cheap players playing in slots and situations where they are frequently better than their opponent they're matched up with. That's the depth everyone is trying to find. That's why Vegas wins. Not the top half of their lineup, but the bottom half. The problem is it's hard to add depth in the middle of an ongoing roster cycle when depth isn't handed to you all at once via an expansion draft.

 

 

The argument makes perfect sense. The Knights exploit matchup advantages deep in the lineup because their fourth liners were second and third liners on their old teams, which means when matched up against their opponents' third and fourth lines they have the matchup advantage. I'm not saying don't get star players or trade all your stars. If you have a chance to acquire an all-star you absolutely should. I'm saying in the absence of a star player a roster without a glaring hole is just as good if not better than a roster with a couple star players but weaknesses throughout the rest of the lineup. 

 

Vegas plays in waves with a lot of speed because they can use everybody and late in games they're not as tired as the top lines of the opponents who've had to play more minutes throughout the night. It's not complicated and it's far less romantic than this cinderella fairy tale everyone wants to paint it as. 

 

 

 

 

Again, their coaching and GMs helped out a ton.  The style they play is due to coaching, not a draft.

 

So go ahead and trade Jones, and Bob for more depth.  See how it works out.

 

 

[habsfan1]

LMFAO

 

 

[Sport]

Just now, CreamSoda said:

 

 

Again, their coaching and GMs helped out a ton.  The style they play is due to coaching, not a draft.

 

Gallant doesn't run a system that isn't also used in the rest of the NHL. "we just want to get all four lines going" isn't genius or new, but it is what I'm talking about with the depth of the roster and why every coach in the league says that same thing. He's simply coaching to the skills of the players on the team that they acquired through a very generous expansion draft that all of us could've managed. McPhee did nothing special. 

 

Just now, CreamSoda said:

 

So go ahead and trade Jones, and Bob for more depth.  See how it works out.

 

 

Still missing the point. If we could trade Jones and Bob for a VGK style expansion draft restart I would seriously think about it. That's how good those draft parameters were. There's at least 15 other teams in the NHL right now who would take that deal as well.

 

There's more than one way to win. Developing all-stars and filling in the back half of the lineup with solid role players who don't make mistakes (Pittsburgh, Chicago) is the tried and true way to go and it's good for ticket sales to have big names. But you can still win if you can beat the other team in the matchup advantages in the lower parts of the lineup if your top lines are good enough to minimize the damage done by the star players on the other team. That's what Vegas does because they were given depth throughout the lineup.

 

I don't get what is lost by admitting the league made the draft too easy other than it ruins the fairy tale. 

[Still MIGHTY]

29 minutes ago, McCarthy said:

Because that's not what I'm arguing, dude. GM's are always trying to make trades to add depth to buoy star players. Because of the cap and the size of the league the key to winning in today's NHL is finding cheap players playing in slots and situations where they are frequently better than their opponent they're matched up with. That's the depth everyone is trying to find. That's why Vegas wins. Not the top half of their lineup, but the bottom half. The problem is it's hard to add depth in the middle of an ongoing roster cycle when depth isn't handed to you all at once via an expansion draft.. 

 

Exactly. They were able to get the same level of player across the board. Each line and d-pairing has the same floor. The way every other team is built is a pyramid with cascading levels of talent from the top down.

 

This is the best Vegas is going to be. They can (and probably will) only get worse going forward. (Especially when the "us against the world" motivation wears off next season.)

 

29 minutes ago, CreamSoda said:

 

I agree the team should be average, but not a SC contender.  They made a lot of smart moves along the way to get here.   If a team full of "9th best players" were the key to winning SC, then GMs should trade away all their star players this offseason.  That simply isn't the case though.

 

And having a ton of career years surely helped.  It will be most interesting to see how they do NEXT year.

 

But they can't and they won't because their teams aren't built in the same fashion as Vegas. As was just pointed out, other GMs are weighed down by all the decisions previously made. They can't just wipe the slate clean and fill the line-up with equal drones. Most team's star players have no-move clauses, and even guys not considered stars have no-move clauses. There's years of salary cap implications and penalties, years of draft picks, years of time and energy put into prospects they can't part with.

 

You don't think Chicago would like to wipe the slate clean and get clear of their salary cap hell? You don't think the Ducks would have liked to expose Kevin Bieksa or Corey Perry in the expansion draft? You don't think Buffalo would rather cut everyone loose and get a Vegas-type expansion roster at this point?

 

Vegas had no baggage and the ability to pick from every team's 2nd/3rd line and 2nd defensive pairing and got a Stanley Cup-winning goaltender placed on their doorstep. Vegas wasn't bogged down by their past and was presented opportunities no expansion team before it had. Yes, it is an incredible run they're on, and yes, most of us are just infuriatingly jealous of them at this point (the attitude their fans have taken on hasn't helped), but it's also folly to say they weren't provided advantages no team before it ever was.

 

Going forward? As I said, I can only imagine they're going to come back down to Earth, and it will be a hard fall. Fleury will fade out, and Subban looks competent, but not at Fleury's level. These incredible career years will regress to the mean, because they're called career years for a reason. George McPhee will tinker with the line-up, sign, trade, fuss with this team as he did the Capitals.

[LMU]

4 minutes ago, Still MIGHTY said:

 

Exactly. They were able to get the same level of player across the board. Each line and d-pairing has the same floor. The way every other team is built is a pyramid with cascading levels of talent from the top down.

 

This is the best Vegas is going to be. They can (and probably will) only get worse going forward. (Especially when the "us against the world" motivation wears off next season.)

 

 

But they can't and they won't because their teams aren't built in the same fashion as Vegas. As was just pointed out, other GMs are weighed down by all the decisions previously made. They can't just wipe the slate clean and fill the line-up with equal drones. Most team's star players have no-move clauses, and even guys not considered stars have no-move clauses. There's years of salary cap implications and penalties, years of draft picks, years of time and energy put into prospects they can't part with.

 

You don't think Chicago would like to wipe the slate clean and get clear of their salary cap hell? You don't think the Ducks would have liked to expose Kevin Bieksa or Corey Perry in the expansion draft? You don't think Buffalo would rather cut everyone loose and get a Vegas-type expansion roster at this point?

 

Vegas had no baggage and the ability to pick from every team's 2nd/3rd line and 2nd defensive pairing and got a Stanley Cup-winning goaltender placed on their doorstep. Vegas wasn't bogged down by their past and was presented opportunities no expansion team before it had. Yes, it is an incredible run they're on, and yes, most of us are just infuriatingly jealous of them at this point (the attitude their fans have taken on hasn't helped), but it's also folly to say they weren't provided advantages no team before it ever was.

 

Going forward? As I said, I can only imagine they're going to come back down to Earth, and it will be a hard fall. Fleury will fade out, and Subban looks competent, but not at Fleury's level. These incredible career years will regress to the mean, because they're called career years for a reason. George McPhee will tinker with the line-up, sign, trade, fuss with this team as he did the Capitals.

And those career years will lead to giant contracts that the salary cap will prevent Foley from throwing even more money at.

[Sport]

15 minutes ago, Still MIGHTY said:

 

Exactly. They were able to get the same level of player across the board. Each line and d-pairing has the same floor. The way every other team is built is a pyramid with cascading levels of talent from the top down.

 

That's a much better way of explaining what I'm trying to say. It's when you get into those matchups in the bottom half of the lineup where you see why the Knights seem to roll teams who appear to be more star-studded. Helps them too that teams needed to unload big salaries for cap reasons. An overlooked thing is this is the first expansion team in the salary cap era. That's another luxury the last batch of expansion missed out on. So they got fortunate and landed a few guys teams probably woul'dve kept in the old days and they gave them a  capable first line/pair plus Fluery. 

 

[Still MIGHTY]

1 minute ago, McCarthy said:

That's a much better way of explaining what I'm trying to say. It's when you get into those matchups in the bottom half of the lineup where you see why the Knights seem to roll teams who appear to be more star-studded. Helps them too that teams needed to unload big salaries for cap reasons. An overlooked thing is this is the first expansion team in the salary cap era. That's another luxury the last batch of expansion missed out on. So they got fortunate and landed a few guys teams probably woul'dve kept in the old days and they gave them a  capable first line/pair plus Fluery. 

 

 

Agreed on all of that.

 

Maybe Vegas won't match your first line, but they can play with your second line, beat your third line, and run circles around your fourth line.

[Crabcake]

I I don’t have the time, stamina, nor the interest in the subject to read all of that. But I will offer this. 

 

In on this scenario, as in most things, I think this thing lies down the middle. Was Vegas handed advantages that other expansion teams didn’t get? Yes. Do they have a better roster than those other expansion teams? Probably yes (from an NHL fan beginning in 2011). But as a Caps fan, I can tell you having a good roster with an excellent goalie does not always guarantee success. Vegas still had to work to get where they are. 

 

[CreamSoda]

The most impressive aspect of the VGK playoff run is how they have matched both a physical team in the Kings and a faster/skilled team in the Sharks.   I think they would matchup better against the Preds rather than the Jets.

 

 

 

[IceCap]

Come on Winnipeg. Finnish out Nashville and save us form Vegas. 

 

Be Team Justice. 

 

BTW to all of you people riding high on Vegas? 

Both Nashville and Winnipeg are examples of doing it properly. Nashville was a dumpster fire until new ownerships committed themselves to building a team up, piece by piece. 

 

Winnipeg inherited a crap Thrashers team and slowly built them into a Stanley Cup contender over seven years. 

Hell. Winnipeg had to go through losing their first team (and all the years of playoff futility they had) just to get to starting off with a crap Thrashers team. 

 

Neither the Jets or Preds were basically given a team right off the bat. Those fan bases had to go through some lean years. 

 

Vegas? Well they need a rude awakening. Faster the rise, harder the fall. 

[CreamSoda]

21 minutes ago, Ice_Cap said:

Come on Winnipeg. Finnish out Nashville and save us form Vegas. 

 

Be Team Justice. 

 

BTW to all of you people riding high on Vegas? 

Both Nashville and Winnipeg are examples of doing it properly. Nashville was a dumpster fire until new ownerships committed themselves to building a team up, piece by piece. 

 

Winnipeg inherited a crap Thrashers team and slowly built them into a Stanley Cup contender over seven years. 

Hell. Winnipeg had to go through losing their first team (and all the years of playoff futility they had) just to get to starting off with a crap Thrashers team. 

 

Neither the Jets or Preds were basically given a team right off the bat. Those fan bases had to go through some lean years. 

 

Vegas? Well they need a rude awakening. Faster the rise, harder the fall. 

 

What does Nashville getting new owners and Winnipeg getting the Thrashers have to do with the Knights?   

 

Riding high on Vegas?  I enjoy watching good hockey and the Knights are playing really good/exciting hockey.  That's a bad thing why?  Should I continue to hate all things that aren't O6?