2020-2021 NHL Changes

[Kramerica Industries]

11 hours ago, spartacat_12 said:

 

Apologies in advance for derailing the uniform talk, but this is a ridiculous narrative for several reasons. Did the NHL make the expansion draft rules more favourable for Vegas compared to previous expansion teams? Yes, but that's because they realized that if you want a team to succeed in a non-traditional market, ensuring they will be awful for their first 5 seasons isn't the best strategy (*cough* Atlanta *cough* Nashville). Did they somehow "rig" the draft to gift Vegas a Cup contender? Absolutely not. People seem to forget that reactions like these were the general consensus when the picks were named:

 

[trimmed for space]

 

The most ridiculous element of your take is that the NHL should somehow be embarrassed by the success of the franchise. Vegas's run to the Finals was one of the best storylines the league has ever had, and it brought an incredible amount of attention to the league from places that otherwise wouldn't care about hockey. The Golden Knights have already cemented themselves as a model franchise, and the NHL should be proud of that. 

 

You're welcome to your opinion and I'm not going to say you're wrong. But, at least regarding the bold, you'll note that I was careful not to say that. But it also needs to be worth noting - and this isn't Las Vegas's fault that this set of circumstances was different than prior expansion franchises - that one thing that the Knights benefited from was not just slightly more lax protection rules, but also that the salary cap existed and that they could leverage other teams into trading them useful draft assets in exchange for taking either a bad contract off their books, or a problematic contract that was hurting their cap compliance situation. Draft assets that could then more readily be used for other trades for better players. Again, that's not their fault, it's actually very smart management, but I would also say that I would hope they would take advantage of a situation like that when presented to them because they had all the leverage over other cap-constrained teams. They were dealt a great card hand. The credit goes as far as making sure they played their hand properly, which isn't nothing but it's also not as impressive as playing your way out of a bad hand, either, if that makes any sense (it probably doesn't).

 

As far the embarrassment part goes, I stand by that. That 14 other teams in the conference could immediately be dwarfed by a newcomer - and not even in a "fluke playoff run" kind of way, either; Las Vegas won their division and had the 2nd best record in the conference - reflects poorly on the way most NHL front offices then, and now, are run. Again, Las Vegas's fault? No. The fault of the NHL franchises for being the Old Boys Clubs that they are? You bet. If you have that much incompetence that an expansion franchise can jump over all of you immediately...woof.

 

9 hours ago, MDGP said:

I'll give you Tuch, but Marchessault people should've known about if they were paying attention. Florida's leading goal scorer with 30 goals scored and 51 points in his first season in an expanded role. It was pretty clear even at the time that Florida had made a bad trade.

 

I can take this one step further and tell you that I knew Marchessault was the real deal when he was playing for the Lightning in 2015-'16, was consistently frustrated by the lack of playing time he got once an injury crisis that swept that team had cleared up, and was annoyed but not surprised when he left to go to Florida (I think he was a UFA so I don't blame him for taking a place with more playing time) and subsequently flourished. That Florida and their incompetent management (at the time) traded him to Las Vegas was a clear-as-day mistake.

 

It's disappointing to me that the exact same sort of thing is happening now with Carter Verhaege as well, but this one wasn't as easy to predict (but was easier to avoid). Maybe he'll be tearing things up in Seattle next year, if history is set to repeat itself. Who the hell knows...

 

[joekono]

21 hours ago, andrewharrington said:

Exactly. It’s embarrasssing that an expansion team whose biggest star was a goalkeeper on the wrong side of his prime made a serious playoff run?

 

It’s embarrassing for the other teams, if anything. It’s not like they put together the hockey version of the Nets in one summer...

Totally agree with you andrewharrington. Call it what you want but it as still embarrassing in my opinion. I will say, more than ever, it's all about getting "in the tournament". Expansion isn't always good for leagues(the Cup hasn't been in Canada in almost 30 years) and now there's another team coming next year. Remember, also in 2019, the Blues were DEAD LAST in the league on January 3rd(the last "normal") NHL year and won it all. Home ice means nothing anymore in the playoffs. Last year seemed to work well with some teams getting byes, which led to one of the best teams in the decade of the 10s finally win their 2nd Cup. Anyway, yes although it may have been a great backstory, the Golden Knights making it to the Finals in their first year was a bit of a joke to me.

[beachperroAZ]

On 3/18/2021 at 5:40 AM, O.C.D said:

Totally in favor of this. It's a unique color combination in the NHL and it has local crossover appeal (cementing purple and gold as LA's colors). It's historically relevant as well. If they changed the logo background from white to gold these uniforms would look even better.

They would lose a lot of merchandise sales if they ditched silver and black.  

[Sport]

The thing that bothered me about 2018 Vegas was at the time they were being covered as this team of castoff misfits that nobody wanted who were making this Cinderella run to the finals out of sheer gumption and determination and the drive for vengeance. That would've been a great story! But it just wasn't true. They were just a good collection of talent because the league made sure they were a good collection of talent. They got lucky with a couple pieces and the system afforded them top-to-bottom depth, which is like the biggest factor in building a successful NHL roster. The league having such a finger on the scale made the whole thing feel phony and I really wish that wasn't the case because a first year team full of castoffs and misfits would've been an all-time great sports story, but they weren't that. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[colinturner95]

On 3/31/2021 at 10:59 AM, beachperroAZ said:

They would lose a lot of merchandise sales if they ditched silver and black.  

Out of personal curiosity, this is based on what info? 

[elliott]

1 hour ago, Sport said:

The thing that bothered me about 2018 Vegas was at the time they were being covered as this team of castoff misfits that nobody wanted who were making this Cinderella run to the finals out of sheer gumption and determination and the drive for vengeance. That would've been a great story! But it just wasn't true. They were just a good collection of talent because the league made sure they were a good collection of talent. They got lucky with a couple pieces and the system afforded them top-to-bottom depth, which is like the biggest factor in building a successful NHL roster. The league having such a finger on the scale made the whole thing feel phony and I really wish that wasn't the case because a first year team full of castoffs and misfits would've been an all-time great sports story, but they weren't that. 

 

Yeah, and it's just an easy (and lazy) narrative for the sports media to jump on to....I also think the expansion drafts from 20 yrs ago also influenced people in to assuming that it would be a bunch of misfits, because the expansion drafts for Atlanta, Minnesota, and Columbus created truly terrible teams.

 

BUT saying that this was a "good collection of talent" at the time after the expansion draft would have been a SUPER hot take, seems a bit like revisionist history. If you look at that roster, at the time, you would have been saying that it's: a few borderline 1st/2nd line players (Perron, Marchessault, Neal, Karlsson (who at the time was very unproven) ), some solid middle line players (Haula, Smith, who I'm pretty sure was a career 3rd line player and wasn't seen as a guy who could get 60 pts), 2 good defenseman (Schmidt, Theodore, also very young at the time), and a good goalie who was looked at the time like his career could be basically over. At the time, we all would've said, ok, that's a decent at best top 6 and a fairly weak D-corps. The over under on their point total that year was 68.5, they were +20000 to win the cup. Lol.

 

They weren't a bunch of misfits because they weren't all like 4th liners, it was a bunch of guys who seemed liked 2nd/3rd line talent, I get it, but let's not act like anyone thought this was a good team.

[VancouverFan69]

On 3/31/2021 at 9:59 AM, beachperroAZ said:

They would lose a lot of merchandise sales if they ditched silver and black.  

Actually, quite the opposite. It was Gretzky and team success that sold Kings merchandise. Had the Kings kept the purple and yellow-gold but went back to the original crown sweaters or went with something like the retro reverse with the Chevy shield, the Kings would have sold far more merchandise.

[63Bulldogs63]

5 hours ago, VancouverFan69 said:

Actually, quite the opposite. It was Gretzky and team success that sold Kings merchandise. Had the Kings kept the purple and yellow-gold but went back to the original crown sweaters or went with something like the retro reverse with the Chevy shield, the Kings would have sold far more merchandise.

 

Wrong. The Kings, while yes with nhl fans became popular because of the play and success on the ice, it was the switch to silver and black that sold and drove merch sales. Had they never switched to a pallet similar to the Raiders, NWA most likely never rocks their gear as lets face it, hockey isn't particularly popular with the hiphop demo. NWA wearing LA Kings gear was easily the biggest driving force in merch sales during that time period.

[nlane33]

Speaking of Vegas, VGK is going with their grey helmets tonight with their regular home uniform. They had been wearing the obnoxious gold helmets. Fingers crossed they got the memo from viewers and fans!

[oddball]

2 hours ago, 63Bulldogs63 said:

 

Wrong. The Kings, while yes with nhl fans became popular because of the play and success on the ice, it was the switch to silver and black that sold and drove merch sales. Had they never switched to a pallet similar to the Raiders, NWA most likely never rocks their gear as lets face it, hockey isn't particularly popular with the hiphop demo. NWA wearing LA Kings gear was easily the biggest driving force in merch sales during that time period.

Do you realize what you're saying? Kings gear became popular in the LA culture not because they switched to black and silver, but because they had a draw that everyone had to have a piece of. If the Kings would've stayed purple and gold, I'm pretty sure NWA and hip hop would've jumped on board with that. It's not like hip hop and "cool" people have stayed away from the Lakers colors of purple and gold. People bought Kings gear because it was a hot item because Gretzky made it a hot item. As good as Bernie Nichols and Steve Duschene were, they aren't selling gear or the game no matter what color you have them in. If no one knows about them, they aren't gonna buy the gear. Trust me, as someone who's lived in So Cal and followed the Kings, it was not the color switch that made the Kings popular, it was Gretzky alone that made the Kings gear popular. Before Gretzky, few people wore Kings gear because few people knew about the team in So Cal, after Gretzky it was a different story.

[63Bulldogs63]

12 minutes ago, oddball said:

Do you realize what you're saying? Kings gear became popular in the LA culture not because they switched to black and silver, but because they had a draw that everyone had to have a piece of. If the Kings would've stayed purple and gold, I'm pretty sure NWA and hip hop would've jumped on board with that. It's not like hip hop and "cool" people have stayed away from the Lakers colors of purple and gold. People bought Kings gear because it was a hot item because Gretzky made it a hot item. As good as Bernie Nichols and Steve Duschene were, they aren't selling gear or the game no matter what color you have them in. If no one knows about them, they aren't gonna buy the gear. Trust me, as someone who's lived in So Cal and followed the Kings, it was not the color switch that made the Kings popular, it was Gretzky alone that made the Kings gear popular. Before Gretzky, few people wore Kings gear because few people knew about the team in So Cal, after Gretzky it was a different story.

 

Nwa was wearing black. Even the possible lakers gear, which I couldn't find any pictures of them at that time wearing, was black based.

 

Hip hop at that time during the boom of gangsta rap was black clothing based.

 

I should rephrase my stance. Yes Gretzky was a huge reason why they became popular with hockey fans and certain demos. But going off the visual evidence we have the switch to black attracted nwa which then attracted that demo that would not have bought merch because of Gretzky. Reason being that demo isn't big on hockey regardless of how popular someone may be.

[The_Admiral]

19 hours ago, elliott said:

They weren't a bunch of misfits because they weren't all like 4th liners, it was a bunch of guys who seemed liked 2nd/3rd line talent, I get it, but let's not act like anyone thought this was a good team.

 

The Golden Knights were afforded a roster of four second-third-ish lines, and were able to further exploit mismatches by running very short shifts and shooting in high volume. Given that most scoring comes from exploiting a mismatch in either talent or fatigue, it borders on making hockey a solved game. I begrudge no resentment toward what the Golden Knights got to do. I don't care how much attention it brought to the game in L.A.'s easternmost suburb.

[Lights Out]

21 hours ago, Sport said:

The thing that bothered me about 2018 Vegas was at the time they were being covered as this team of castoff misfits that nobody wanted who were making this Cinderella run to the finals out of sheer gumption and determination and the drive for vengeance. That would've been a great story! But it just wasn't true. They were just a good collection of talent because the league made sure they were a good collection of talent. They got lucky with a couple pieces and the system afforded them top-to-bottom depth, which is like the biggest factor in building a successful NHL roster. The league having such a finger on the scale made the whole thing feel phony and I really wish that wasn't the case because a first year team full of castoffs and misfits would've been an all-time great sports story, but they weren't that. 

 

Did anyone really expect that Vegas team to even sniff near a Stanley Cup Finals appearance before the season, though? Let's be honest.

 

There's a lot of things you can criticize Bettman for (and he deserves every bit of it), but the Vegas thing has always seemed to me like complaining for the sake of complaining. They had a good run, it was a nice story for the league. I view it the same way as the time John Scott won All-Star MVP. Not everything needs to be a commentary on the state of the league, some things can just be fun.

[Sport]

23 minutes ago, Lights Out said:

 

Did anyone really expect that Vegas team to even sniff near a Stanley Cup Finals appearance before the season, though? Let's be honest.

 

Of course I didn't expect them to reach the finals, but I did look at the depth on the roster, saw William Karlsson was going to get third line minutes like he had with a Blue Jackets team the year prior who had a similar surprise  trajectory and thought a team with that kind of depth had a really good shot at the playoffs. 

 

I was more keyed-in on the expansion draft at the time because I was grouchy that the league had made things so difficult on Nashville, Atlanta, Columbus, and Minnesota and then turned around and handed Vegas extremely generous rules. It looked to me at the time like they over-corrected from lessons learned with previous tough expansion drafts. It's bad business to make your teams struggle for so long out of the gate, which ultimately led to Atlanta's death, so I get why they did it, but they went too far. 

 

Quote

There's a lot of things you can criticize Bettman for (and he deserves every bit of it), but the Vegas thing has always seemed to me like complaining for the sake of complaining.

 

Complaining about the dismantling of the sport's competitive integrity isn't complaining just to complain.  

 

Quote

They had a good run, it was a nice story for the league. I view it the same way as the time John Scott won All-Star MVP. Not everything needs to be a commentary on the state of the league, some things can just be fun.

 

That had to be a commentary on the league, though, because it was the story of the post 13 lockout. Fun things are fun. John Scott making a dumb all-star exhibition through a fan vote was fun. The league accidentally building a team that nearly wins the cup in their first year wasn't fun. Again, if it actually was a ragtag group of castoffs and misfits who banded together and almost won the cup in year one, that would've been really fun. I'm not really sorry to ruin that fairytale for people. 

 

[Lights Out]

1 minute ago, Sport said:

Complaining about the dismantling of the sport's competitive integrity isn't complaining just to complain.  

 

I fail to see how the sport's "competitive integrity" was dismantled by an expansion team being good. They didn't even win the Cup that season.

 

Pointing out that other expansion teams had a harder time starting out is a valid criticism. But these conspiracy theories of the league having their thumb on the scale for Vegas are overdramatic. The Tim Peel scandal alone should disabuse people of the notion that the NHL is competent enough to rig anything and keep it a secret. Knowing this league, if they were actually rigging for Vegas, Bettman would have shown up to every playoff game in a Golden Knights jersey and the broadcasts would have cut to him celebrating in the stands after every Vegas goal.

[Sport]

1 minute ago, Lights Out said:

 

I fail to see how the sport's "competitive integrity" was dismantled by an expansion team being good. They didn't even win the Cup that season.

 

Because suddenly a 100 point team built completely inorganically was dropped into the eco-system playing opponents who weren't built using the same advantages. In past expansion years those teams were also built inorganically, but the difference is the expansion rules didn't immediately put their rosters in better situations than already existing teams.

 

They didn't need to win the cup to disrupt the competitive integrity. What they did was enough damage to be a problem. If they'd won the cup it would've felt very hollow and phony. I am (and everyone else should be) glad that they didn't win the cup and the league avoided that bush league bullshirt. 

 

1 minute ago, Lights Out said:

Pointing out that other expansion teams had a harder time starting out is a valid criticism. But these conspiracy theories of the league having their thumb on the scale for Vegas are overdramatic. The Tim Peel scandal alone should disabuse people of the notion that the NHL is competent enough to rig anything and keep it a secret. Knowing this league, if they were actually rigging for Vegas, Bettman would have shown up to every playoff game in a Golden Knights jersey and the broadcasts would have cut to him celebrating in the stands after every Vegas goal.

 

Never said it was rigged. Nobody said it was rigged. It wasn't deliberate, which is why it's even more OITGDNHL than if it had been rigged. Everyone who takes issue with that team takes issue with how that team was covered as the castoff darlings and that they were gifted an easier ride than their expansion predecessors. End of story. That Bettman overcorrected and almost accidentally gave them the cup in year one is an extremely Bettman thing to happen. 

[Sodboy13]

It's not George McPhee's fault that Dale Tallon exists.

[Nordiks_19]

On an unrelated topic (it's a uniforms / aesthetics topic after all), the Canucks seem to have changed the banners for their retired jersey to those fitting of the era of the player.

 

[DEAD!]

4 hours ago, Nordiks_19 said:

On an unrelated topic (it's a uniforms / aesthetics topic after all), the Canucks seem to have changed the banners for their retired jersey to those fitting of the era of the player.

 

But they did  not change the fonts 

[Wade Heidt]

6 hours ago, Nordiks_19 said:

On an unrelated topic (it's a uniforms / aesthetics topic after all), the Canucks seem to have changed the banners for their retired jersey to those fitting of the era of the player.

 

 

It was done last season 2 nights before the Sedins had their jerseys retired.  4 new banners for Smyl, Bure, Linden, and Naslund that more properly reflect the Canucks uniform they were known for.  The banners for the Sedins then went into the rafters 2 night later.