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

[mcj882000]

I mentioned it briefly in my post, but just because it's been asked about (and also I'm a sucker for minuscule trivia like this ) I'll post the terms for every expansion draft in the modern era:

1991 - North Stars effectively split in two and purge their entire roster, they claim 14 skaters and 2 goalies and then the Sharks also claim 14 & 2 afterwards, then they take turns picking until SJ had 30 players; then every other team protected 16 skaters and 2 goalies, and Minnesota & San Jose take turns picking 10 players each. (A very unique draft, to say the least)

1992 - Everyone but SJ protected 14 skaters and 2 goalies, but they had to unprotect at least one goalie that played at least one game in 1991-92.

1993 - All existing teams (SJ, TB and OTT included) protected 9 forwards, 5 defencemen and 1 goalie.

1998 - Teams protected 9 forwards, 5 defencemen and 1 goalie, same as in 1993, or 7 forwards, 3 defencemen and 2 goalies.

1999 - Same as 1998; teams that lost a goalie to Nashville didn't have to protect goalies from Atlanta.

2000 - Same as 1998. 

2017 - Teams protected 7 forwards, 3 defencemen and 1 goalie or 8 skaters and 1 goalie.

[chrysleraspen08]

I'm in the group of people that is happy about the Golden Knights success this year. While they did get a bit of an advantage from the expansion draft process compared to others in the past, they still did overcome some adversity and I would still consider them an underdog story. Going into the season, most people predicted that they'd be near the bottom of the Western Conference and wouldn't have a shot at a playoff spot. Now look at where they are. To add to what's being said above regarding the team being deep, while they are deep, it's still a team made up of 90% 3rd liners and 2nd or 3rd pairing players, plus a few players who up until this year may have only had potential to be a 2nd line player at best, plus Neil and Fleury. The only reason this is an issue is because they pulled of a winning season somehow, and to a lesser extent the whole sunbelt stigma that exists. I guess we'll just have to give it time to see if the Vegas experiment will be a fluke or not, both on ice and when it comes to drawing fans.

Also, when it comes time for the Seattle expansion draft in a couple of years, I'm sure that they'll probably change the rules up a little bit. If not, I don't believe they'll go on a run like Vegas did this year. There were too many things that just happened to go well and work for them, it'll be tough to replicate that.

[The_Admiral]

23 minutes ago, mcj882000 said:

1998 - Teams protected 9 forwards, 5 defencemen and 1 goalie, same as in 1993, or 7 forwards, 3 defencemen and 2 goalies.

 

Not sure I understand the asset management calculus here: if you have two goalies worth protecting, why don't you make a player-for-player trade with one of them, then protect the maximum 15 players rather than 12 while improving at forward or defense? Who but the Belfour-Hasek 1992 Blackhawks had a backup goalie whose value was equivalent to an 8th forward, 9th forward, 4th defenseman, and 5th defenseman combined? Of course, this was 1998, so 1) the notion of winning the Stanley Cup with two goalies and a prayer wasn't wholly unreasonable, and 2) most NHL general managers were even dumber then than they are now.

[Cosmic]

7 minutes ago, mcj882000 said:

I mentioned it briefly in my post, but just because it's been asked about (and also I'm a sucker for minuscule trivia like this ) I'll post the terms for every expansion draft in the modern era:

1991 - North Stars effectively split in two and purge their entire roster, they claim 14 skaters and 2 goalies and then the Sharks also claim 14 & 2 afterwards, then they take turns picking until SJ had 30 players; then every other team protected 16 skaters and 2 goalies, and Minnesota & San Jose take turns picking 10 players each. (A very unique draft, to say the least)

1992 - Everyone but SJ protected 14 skaters and 2 goalies, but they had to unprotect at least one goalie that played at least one game in 1991-92.

1993 - All existing teams (SJ, TB and OTT included) protected 9 forwards, 5 defencemen and 1 goalie.

1998 - Teams protected 9 forwards, 5 defencemen and 1 goalie, same as in 1993, or 7 forwards, 3 defencemen and 2 goalies.

1999 - Same as 1998; teams that lost a goalie to Nashville didn't have to protect goalies from Atlanta.

2000 - Same as 1998. 

2017 - Teams protected 7 forwards, 3 defencemen and 1 goalie or 8 skaters and 1 goalie.

Thanks for compiling this. The only remaining wild card is who actually had to be protected. For this year, I think players with one or two years of NHL experience were automatically protected. I don't know the answer... it could be more or less in Vegas's favor than previous expansions.

 

To me, the crux is that everyone still thought Vegas would be bad at the beginning of the year.

 

This wasn't exactly the '02 Red Wings they drafted. Yes, the expansion process was better for Vegas, but I think the general consensus was that the ceiling was to be "in the hunt". It's easy to look at the way things happened and assume that it was destined to be that way, but nobody saw this coming (even in September/October). It wasn't that they were given a clear powerhouse; they just had everything turn out right. A good coach dumped by the Panthers because analytics, a GM available with good regular season track record, Matt Murray showed up, they got good Fleury instead of can't-stop-a-beach-ball-in-the-playoffs Fleury, players probably had career years (looking at you, William Karlsson), etc. If they end up with Rick Tocchet and Darcy Kuemper instead of Gallant and Fleury, it's probably not the same season.

 

And this probably won't be popular on the boards here, but money talks. The difference between when the Beej and the Wild came into the league is a helluva lot more money. Teams 27-30 payed $80M around 20 years ago. Vegas paid $500M. That's a very favorable COLA for the other owners.

[The_Admiral]

2 hours ago, LMU said:

The problem with Vegas is that its existence is doubling-down (haha... gambling reference) on Bettman's failing sun belt strategy.  You have the Quebec application put on indefinite hold leaving the most likely scenario the relocation of the Panthers or the Hurricanes.  Of course, the problem there is that allowing one of those two teams to relocate would be another black eye for the sun belt strategy so Bettman's going to fight tooth and nail to prevent that.  You also have the Seattle expansion which, quite frankly, seems to have the ulterior motive of blocking the relocation of the Coyotes (who had the vans packed if the Glendale circus City Council voted the other way).

 

The Quebec issue really looms large here. Even though the league was pretty clear that they wanted to expand to Las Vegas and Seattle, they've still been stringing Quebec City along in a number of ways. You don't build a publicly financed 18,000-seat hockey arena if you have no expectation or indication that it'll be used for what 18,000-seat hockey arenas are used for. And that bald dickhead from Shark Tank admitted that there was interest in buying the Coyotes and moving them to Quebec but Bettman got on the phone and said that wasn't gonna happen, despite the wheels in motion (or even the shovels in the ground, gotta check the timeline) for a Colisee replacement. They were allowed to make a bid for expansion to 32 teams, then they lost to the emerging candidate of "no one." So now they've wasted all this money on a very impressive arena that has no professional tenant and none on the horizon. Great, that's what we all love to see. If Las Vegas had come in alongside Quebec City as both teams applied for expansion, then I don't think anyone would really have any ill will, but the appearance of a league bending over backward  to give the best possible team to this culture-starved housing tract in the middle of a desert while telling Canada to piss off is almost a caricature of the last 25 years of NHL policy. 

 

More than that, I think what I can't stand is the bouquets being thrown at the feet of George McPhee. This is the guy who wasted years of Alex Ovechkin's prime on poorly built Capitals teams, culminating in the hiring of latex-faced moron Adam Oates, whose brilliant coaching maneuver was to play one of the two or three best hockey players in the world out of position and then throw a bitchfit about which eyelets he ran his skate laces through. And now this guy is the mastermind of the hockey world because a West Point nut paid half a billion for him to make waiver claims on second-line forwards. Great.

[Wings]

Sharks will become legend on here if they dispatch Vegas from the playoffs.

[ninersdd]

Demons from 2009 are killed!

[Morgan33]

[FiddySicks]

Hell yes. That’s exactly what the Sharks needed. Catch a few days off and handle those clowns from that :censored:ty casino dump on full rest. 

 

Sharks are gonna take this goodwill from the most satisfying series win I’ve ever seen (beating Detroit in the 2010 second round was my top series before this one), and then turn around and lose to my absolute least favorite team and the biggest farce in all of sports, aren’t they? ?

[Still MIGHTY]

Nope. Nothing.

 

The Ducks were not better than the Sharks in any single area in this series. The Sharks were the entirely better team in this series, top to bottom, no exceptions. Hats off.

 

For the Ducks, I’m for any and all moves they make. Whoever they want to fire, do it. Whoever they want to trade, do it. Carlyle being gone is an absolute must, and I am in support of literally anything else they want to do. But firing Carlyle is the baseline. There needs to be change. Literally any change will be good change.

 

——

 

All in for Winnipeg-Columbus Final. Let’s do it.

[wildwing64]

Well, that was crap. But I'm not especially surprised. The Sharks absolutely deserved this.

[CS85]

12 hours ago, Bucfan56 said:

This whole Vegas thing has probably the worst optics I’ve ever seen from a pro sports team, and they’re not even through the first year yet! They’re not the team that “Destroyed hockey” or anything, but they definitely could be the tipping point in terms of how seriously hockey is going to be taken by the greater masses. 

 

 

I don't share this dread.  Feels silly.  Just enjoy or ignore the thing and lighten up.  Hockey's died 1000 times, sometimes annually in these threads.  It'll be fine.

 

[Sport]

I really do hate to be a crank. In most cases I'd be excited for the first year team, but the way the league goofed with the rules, the way they were built, bending over backwards to help the new guys, the generous expansion terms - the fix on handing the Golden Knights a good team from day one is just too obvious and makes things look really bush league. Their success doesn't feel as legitimate as it would if they'd built the team from the ground up like the rest of us had to. And I'm not thrilled with having to hear "ISN'T THIS A GREAT STORY?!?!" From hockey medias. No, it's not. I didn't think they'd be this good, but I did feel like they'd have a good shot at competing, better than my team did 18 years ago. Back then teams got to protect more players and we had to split the pool with another team. Yes a lot of my irritation with VGK is jealousy. 

[CS85]

1 minute ago, McCarthy said:

Yes a lot of my irritation with VGK is jealousy. 

 

I wish more people would simply admit that this is a big part of it. 

 

Fans here should be more savvy than to let the media's romanticizing of this team's run so far get to them.  Maybe the Sharks will be your 2018 Team Justice. 

[Sport]

1 minute ago, CS85 said:

 

I wish more people would simply admit that this is a big part of it. 

 

 

I'm not afraid to spell my truth. The simple reality is that it's just not fair. If this had happened for the Blue Jackets in 2001 I wouldn't care nearly as much. I also probably wouldn't have shed drunk tears of joy in 2009 when they clinched the playoffs for the first time. IDK. Just it should be harder for them. 

 

 

[LMU]

13 hours ago, Bucfan56 said:

This whole Vegas thing has probably the worst optics I’ve ever seen from a pro sports team, and they’re not even through the first year yet! They’re not the team that “Destroyed hockey” or anything, but they definitely could be the tipping point in terms of how seriously hockey is going to be taken by the greater masses. 

I'd say the best way to equate this is that Vegas is making the NHL drift ever so slightly into Arena Football League territory with the sense that anyone with enough money to throw around in a non-Canadian, preferably snowbird attracting market can have a playoff team bequeathed to them.  The only thing that would make this more AFL-like would be if the Seattle group was led by Jeff Bezos and the team was named the Seattle Primes.

 

And, as someone who's actually been to a game at T-Mobile Arena, the fact that the fanbase there is blindly cheering for a sport that they haven't the slightest clue as to what's actually going on while being treated to a playoff run in the first year is laughable.  That crowd would cheer every time the Knights iced the puck.  Plus, do you really have to have your team so gimmicky that you need a literal mascot to go along with the gila monster, an Excalibur pregame show, the ice crew dressed like minstrels and Xena extras, and Blue Man Group joining the Tron reject drumline?  Do you really need all that to get the pit bosses to drag their families in from Henderson?

[Sport]

16 minutes ago, LMU said:

 

And, as someone who's actually been to a game at T-Mobile Arena, the fact that the fanbase there is blindly cheering for a sport that they haven't the slightest clue as to what's actually going on while being treated to a playoff run in the first year is laughable.  That crowd would cheer every time the Knights iced the puck.  Plus, do you really have to have your team so gimmicky that you need a literal mascot to go along with the gila monster, an Excalibur pregame show, the ice crew dressed like minstrels and Xena extras, and Blue Man Group joining the Tron reject drumline?  Do you really need all that to get the pit bosses to drag their families in from Henderson?

I think the game ops histrionics is just Las Vegas being Las Vegas and people expect that kind of performance from a Vegas team. The first part of your post is absolutely true. The fans would've come out and cheered for an 0-82-0 team this season. This is their first major pro sports team. They didn't need to be good right away. 

 

I think Bettman just really wanted to avoid another Atlanta Thrashers situation and the league fully over-corrected for the troubles the last group of expansion teams went through. 

[tp49]

I was in Vegas most of the week  Decided on Tuesday to go to the team sponsored game watch party just to get a feel for things (that and the channels showing the game weren't available in the hotel.)  I had to admit when all was said and done that I enjoyed it and got some free swag.  Also noticed a good deal of excitement from tourists and locals alike.  Still, don't want them to win but they threw a nice party.  As a fan of a team that thinks 12 years of rebuilding is an acceptable practice, I'm only rooting for Pittsburgh to lose and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.

[Alex Houston]

Vegas having unprecedented success is annoying but at the end of the day, someone has to step up and prove to be the better team. As of now, no one has done that. But just to bust Bucfan's chops a bit, I doubt the Sharks get "absolutely killed." Every game between the teams was a one goal contest. A bit of puck luck either way and Sharks would've taken 3 of 4. That being said, I think they really, really, no really, need to take one in Vegas. I highly doubt this team can beat the Knights four out of five times, even with decent depth and the emergence of 'Playoff Kane.'

 

Heart wants to say Sharks in 6. Head says it's Knights in 6. 

[FiddySicks]

4 hours ago, CS85 said:

 

I wish more people would simply admit that this is a big part of it. 

 

Fans here should be more savvy than to let the media's romanticizing of this team's run so far get to them. 

 

I Don’t think that’s completely fair. That’d be like if the blowback against some of the latest tax laws that have come out, which heavily and blatantly work in favor of the rich and screw the middle class (I’m not necessarily saying that’s my opinion, just that that’s the argument. I don’t want this to get political) were cast aside by some rich a***ole who says “you’re just jealous” as he rakes up every penny off of the table in front of him with both arms. Well, yeah. OF COURSE it’s jealousy, because it’s blatantly unfair and works against those of whom actually put in the real effort to build something. You kind of have to step up and say something in that case or it’s only going to get worse.