spartacat_12

I mean Stamkos had played in a Cup Final the year before his deal expired, and the decision to stay has worked out real well for him. Tough to fault a guy who wanted to stay in a Florida mansion where he gets the best tax rates in the league, and gets to play for a consistent contender. Well in a hard-cap league I think it's fine for fans to complain about how much money a guy is being paid. Most of my friends are Leafs fans, and I was with them when the signing was announced. They were cheering & dancing around to the news, but part of me felt like it could hurt them in the long run. If he isn't on their payroll at $11 mil, maybe they can convince Matthews & Marner to sign for a little less than they got. They already had Kadri, so Tavares showing up pretty much forced them to trade him. If they wanted to make a big splash in free agency they would've been better off waiting for Pietrangelo.

USA has kept the jersey template from the Olympics, but have put the federation logo on the front. It's a much better look:

I know a couple years ago they thought they had a done deal for Markstrom, but Calgary swooped in at the last minute and signed him. I'm not sure if they called about Fleury, but he likely wouldn't have waived his no-trade clause to go there. Gibson should be a major target for them this offseason, but I don't know if they have the trade pieces Anaheim would be interested in. Maybe one of the Washington goalies would be more realistic. But it's the Oilers, so they'll probably just overpay for a guy like Jack Campbell.

Well Shane Wright is closer to a Hischier/Nugent-Hopkins type of 1st overall than he is a McDavid/Matthews, so it isn't the end of the world. Next year will be the big one. With the recent rule changes Montreal can now only win 1 of the next 4 lotteries.

Yes, it has been a rumour for a while. When they initially unveiled the alternate Bill Foley mentioned that it could become the home look down the road. He said that grey doesn't stand out in a crowd. Also, when the Knights announced their jersey sponsor for next season they used the gold jersey to show how the patch will look.

Ottawa is the only black & red team that uses black as the primary colour, so they're fine. New Jersey ideally would have stayed red & green, but they've been red & black for too long to change now. The shoulder yoke does a decent job of separating them from Chicago. Carolina should be a mostly red & silver, with a bit of black to tie in the warning flag. As for the red & blue teams, Florida uses enough gold that I don't think they belong in this group. Colorado is burgundy, not red, and their shade of blue is unique. That leaves 4 teams, and they each have their own look. Rangers are a royal blue team that wears red pants, Habs are a red team in royal pants/helmets, Jackets are navy blue with red pants (although I'd rather see them in all navy), and the Caps are a red team with navy pants/helmets.

I definitely agree with this. There are 4 red & black teams, 4 red & blue teams, 2 blue & orange teams, 2 blue & yellow teams, and 2 black & yellow teams. Pittsburgh & Boston are a little too similar in my opinion, but other than that the teams that share colour schemes are able to stand out on their own. Philly is an orange & white team with black trim. Anaheim's alternates are orange & black with gold & white trim.

Say what you want about the fans, but I'm sure the league prefers a sold out building with the occasional obnoxious fan over another Atlanta Thrashers situation. Besides, it wasn't the expansion draft that gave the fanbase their sense of entitlement as much as it was the fantasy hockey-esque transactions that followed. And again, "making the Knights a Cup contender" seems to imply that the team deserves no credit for putting the team together. The league let them pick from a pool of 3rd line forwards, 2nd pairing d-men, and backup goalies. They weren't cherry-picking from the all star teams. Firstly, every team in the league agreed to the expansion draft rules before they approved the Vegas expansion bid, so if it were actually "unfair" I'm sure the other GMs/owners would have complained. As I said previously, Seattle had identical rules, plus more teams in cap trouble, and they finished 30th in the league. Secondly, the league changing expansion draft rules to give new teams a better shot at being competitive isn't new. After Ottawa started with one of the worst seasons in the history of the league, the rules were tweaked for the following year's expansion draft. For the Tampa/Ottawa expansion teams were allowed to protect 2 goalies, then for the Anaheim/Florida draft teams could only protect 1. This allowed the Panthers to pick John Vanbiesbrouck and the Ducks to pick Guy Hebert. Both teams set new records for expansion teams, and they both had better 1st seasons than Seattle.

They did originally. When they rebranded, the uniforms initially had single layer white/blue numbers just like Toronto, and the pants had a thick white stripe just like Detroit. The backlash from the fanbase lead to them to add the thin black trim on the numbers and the lightning bolt outlined in black on the pants, but it was too late for them to make any changes to the jersey striping.

There are some great uniform matchups this year. Here's how I'd rank them: Calgary - Dallas Minnesota - St. Louis NY - Pittsburgh Colorado - Nashville Carolina - Boston (would be ranked higher if Carolina was wearing red at home) Edmonton - LA (would be ranked higher if Edmonton wasn't wearing their thirds) Florida - Washington Toronto - Tampa Bay

I guess the league should have just forced Vegas to ice a roster of beer league players & EBUGs for their first 10 years until the market "earned" the right to watch an actual pro team.

So you're telling me you liked these?!

Going into their inaugural season their Stanley Cup odds were 500-1. Maybe you had a crystal ball and could see that they were a Cup contender off the bat, but to the majority of the hockey world they were pretty much the definition of a Cinderella. None of the top Knights from that season have even been able to replicate the stats they put up that year.

The Mets' brand did just fine for 36 years before they decided to jump on the BFBS bandwagon. Having a black alternate without any black anywhere in your other uniforms isn't a solution, it just makes the black uniform look even more tacky/gimmicky.

Hindsight is 20-20. Looking back now obviously it's clear that teams made mistakes when it came to who they exposed and/or what side deals they made, but not many people were saying that immediately after the expansion draft. Just look at the point totals of some of their top players in their last season before Vegas compared to the Knights' inaugural season (which happened to be a career year for all of them): Marchessault: 51 points --> 71 points Smith: 37 points --> 60 points Haula: 26 points --> 55 points Perron: 46 points --> 66 points Karlsson: 25 points --> 78 points Sure, Seattle didn't get the opportunity to take the other clubs by surprise, but the cap stayed flat for them which meant more quality players were exposed. Vegas never had the opportunity to take someone like Tarasenko or Duchene. Did the league want to ensure the new teams could be competitive relatively quickly? Yes, and that just makes sense when you consider what a disaster teams like Atlanta & Nashville were in their 1st decades. Was it some sort of tin-foil hat conspiracy to gift the city of Las Vegas with a Stanley Cup contender? No. If Quebec City had gotten an expansion team that went to the Cup Finals in their first season I highly doubt people would be this upset.

The orange jerseys with navy trim look 100x better than the orange jerseys with royal. However, the royal blue set looks better than the navy. They should just go back to the royal set, but I'd like to see them keep the single outline numbers. I was never a fan of the thin blue outline between the orange & white.

1st point: So we should blame Vegas for taking advantage of other GMs' incompetence? I'm sure Seattle could have done a better job of managing their expansion draft, but Francis overplayed his hand. Reports said he was asking for ridiculous prices to select players with big contracts (multiple 1st rounders), and he passed on guys like Duchene & Tarasenko who are both well over a point-per-game this year 2nd point: Seattle's $650 expansion fee was divided 30 ways, with Vegas being the only franchise that didn't get a piece of the pie.

I've said this before and I'll say it again: Vegas was not just handed a fantastic roster. Management passed on taking established guys like Matt Dumba, Sami Vatanen, Josh Manson, and Josh Anderson in favour of stockpiling picks/prospects. Fleury was looking washed up at the time and Pittsburgh was so desperate to dump his contract that they gave up a pick to guarantee he'd get picked. They specifically took guys like James Neal & David Perron who were going into the last years of their deals because they assumed they'd be sellers at the deadline. Most of the post-expansion draft reactions were something like this: Seattle having the same expansion draft rules and finishing 30th in the league, despite being more aggressive than Vegas in free agency, should kill this false narrative for good.

These aren't awful, but the monochrome blue isn't good. Gold pants would go a long way in improving the set. As for the numbers being minimized, I believe most CFL jerseys are sold blank, so it makes sense to have a logo on the front otherwise it'd be a fairly plain jersey.

I'd say the emergence of Auston Matthews and ASU playing Division I hockey has helped keep interest in the sport. The Coyotes have also had their practice facility in Scottsdale for a while. This article paints a pretty good picture of the last 20 years of the Coyotes: https://www.gophnx.com/2022/04/28/the-glendale-years-for-the-coyotes-it-was-the-best-of-times-but-mostly-it-was-the-worst-of-times/

It's been well known for a while that the majority of the Yotes fanbase lives in the East Valley (Scottsdale/Tempe/Mesa/Chandler). They had originally looked into building an arena in Scottsdale before moving to Glendale, but couldn't get a deal done. Now instead of forcing most of their fans to drive over an hour each way for games, they'll be within 30 minutes of the rink. They'll also be closer to a wider variety of pre/post game entertainment options, instead of just a small entertainment district surrounded by desert.

Yeah...that's not going to happen. The league & Coyotes aren't happy about this situation, they're just trying to make lemonade. It's no different than the Chargers playing in an MLS stadium 1/3 the size of most NFL stadiums before Sofi got built.

I'm pretty sure the host team/owner don't get any of the revenue from the Super Bowl. Minneapolis went fine, but I don't think the sponsors/media members loved spending a February weekend in Minnesota instead of Florida/Arizona/California. Detroit got their Super Bowl at Ford Field, and I don't see that happening again.

Pretty sure the league has said that the games will rotate between LA, Vegas, Miami, Arizona, and New Orleans for the most part. Once in a while they'll throw a bone to a team with a new stadium, but those will just be one-offs. Minneapolis got to host, but that's not happening again. Tennessee should be able to get one, but they're not going to be part of the regular rotation. There is 0 chance that they ever have an outdoor Super Bowl in Buffalo.

This tweet isn't all that clear. Maybe the orange alternates become the primaries, or maybe the reverse retros are going to be orange. Vegas going to be the quickest team in NHL history to wear 5 different coloured jerseys