1. ABSTRACT
I am not exactly sure where this narrative came from and how many of the hockey fans are buying into this, but especially on hockey twitter, the opinion that the league handed everything to VGK and set them up for immediate success has become prevalent. Now that their first year is about to wrap up, we might want to take a look at how their draft choices back then look in retrospect.
2. PROTECTION RULES
As we all vividly remember, teams were given the coice of either proecting 8 skaters and a goalie or 7 F, 3 D and a goalie. Additionally, they could make side deals with VGK in order to get them to pick or not pick certain players of the teams choice. First and second year pros and unsigned prospects were exempt from being picked. Also, players who didn't waive their NMCs/full NTCs had to be protected
2.1 Protection Types By Team
We'll now assess the individual teams choices and whether they struck a deal with VGK. We will differentiate between the deals as followed:
[1] deal to get rid of a certain contract
[2] deal to suggest a lower quality player over another
[3] deal to protect a certain player
[4] Florida Panthers
7F+3D:
ANA [3]
BOS
BUF [2]
CGY
CAR [2]
CHI
COL
CBJ [1]
DAL
DET
EDM
MTL
MIN [3]
NYR
NYI [1]
OTT
PHI
SJS
STL
TBL [1]
TOR
VAN
WSH
WPG [2]
8 Skaters:
ARI
FLA [4]
LAK
NSH
NJD
NYI
PIT [2]
2.1.1 Outcome of the Side Deals
We will ignore draft choices and players who weren't in NA this year because we want to look at their immediate success. The fact that Gusev still isn't here and Glass, Suzuki and Brannström aren't even in the league yet can be covered next year!
So here's the list of players they got out of the side deals:
Jean-François Bérubé, Jake Bischoff, Mikhail Grabovski, Reily Smith, Alex Tuch, David Clarkson, Shea Theodore
So we have 3 NHL contributors, 1 AHL player, 1 fringe NHL goaltender and 2 cap dumps just from the trades. both Theodore and Tuch were exempt from being selected and the price was high because both ANA and MIN wanted to protect not one, but TWO defensemen. Giving up a young player let them leave their top4 intact which is understandable from the viewpoint of a team in "win now" mode.for Reilly Smith, please refer to [4]
2.2 Notable possible choices after the deals and actual choices
The list of players VGK could choose from each team was long, but the actual array of choices was usually rather slim. this was partially because they were locked in on certain choices because of their trades. I'll just include possible picks that make sense from a hockey point of view, so I'll ignore all the AHL depth guys, retiring players etc
ANA: [Stoner]
nothing to see here - Stoner played 0 games due to injury, but Theodore contributed all year. I wouldn't say Anaheim did a mistake here as their blueline isn't their problem and giving up fwd depth would've been even worse for them.
ARI: Burmistrov, Gaudet, Holland, Jooris, McGinn, [Pulkkinen], Richardson, Connauton, McBain, Michalek, Tinordi, Domingue
little more than bottom 6/AHL depth here and that's exactly what Vegas got
BOS: Beleskey, Hayes, Khokhlachev, Moore, Schaller, Stafford, [Miller], Morrow, Khudon, Subban
first headscratcher for me - K. Miller over C. Miller. think most writers agreed with that and it paid out for VGK. C. Miller is left handed, but 5 years younger and produces a lot more offense. many people, even here had them picking Subban, whom they claimed off waivers later.
BUF: [Carrier]
locked into that choice, Carrier was a part time NHL contributor, so not much to see here, the alternative would be mediocre defenders like Franson, Gorges, Kulikov, Bogosian, Falk.. you get the idea.
CGY: Bollig, Bouma, Brouwer, Shinkaruk, Stajan, Versteeg, Elliott, Kulak, Stone, Wideman, [Engelland]
back then everyone acted like this was a marketing gag because he used to play in Vegas, but he arguably played his best season at 36 amidst all predictions. he also played 2 mins per game more than he ever did before (just a hair over 20 mins a night)
CAR: [Brickley]
they didn't even resign him, so all they got from Carolina.. was a 5th round pick.
CHI: Krüger, Desjardins, Oduya, Pokka, Svedberg, [van Riemsdyk]
the choice here was pretty much between Pokka and TvR - Pokka is now in the KHL and TvR got traded for a 2nd rounder
COL: Colborne, Grigorenko, Söderberg, Barberio, Siemens, Wiercioch, [Pickard]
plenty of Avs had a bounceback season few predicted. Pickard looked like a serviceable backup and maybe even a fringe starter at the time, even though he was traded for little tangible results later.
CBJ: [Karlsson]
everyone knows it by now. underused in Columbus he blossomed in Vegas. how different would the picture be if not for Dubinskys and Hartnells NMCs? they probably would have protected Anderson and one of Karlsson and Calvert. CBJ dug that hole themselves.
DAL: [Eakin], Hemsky, Hamhuis, Nemeth, Oleksiak
after a huge down season but still in his prime, Eakin had kind of a bounce back year, but he didn't quite reach his 2014-2016 plateau. not a bad pick as he's solid.
DET: Glendening, Helm, Miller, [Nosek], Sheahan, Ericsson, Kronwall, Ouellet, Sproul, Mrazek
a sneaky good pickup few expected - DET had a lot of bad contracts up for grabs and a few struggling players that didn't quite make it yet and still VGK picked up a 4th liner that made more NHL level contributions than most people expected.
EDM: Russel, [Reinhart], Lander, Khaira, Pakarinen, Gryba, Oesterle
most expected Khaira, but EDM offered exactly 0 players that would have made a tangible NHL impact. losing Reinhart for nothing closed the circle in Edmonton after they basically traded Matt Barzal for him. OOF
FLA: [Marchessault]
see [4]. you've seen it enough. you've heard it enough. but I'll say it anyway.
Without the Florida Panthers internal struggle, with the management apparently undoing every decision of its predecessor, the Vegas story does not happen. FLA inexcusably went for the 8 skater option, protecting Pysyk over Marchessault AND Smith. that's right, they could have kept them both. Smith and Marchessault scored a combined 135 points for a cap hit of 10M$ in the regular season. Mark Pysysk is still a depth defenseman that probably wouldn't even have had a place on VGK roster. I've lost track of FLAs management situation but someone HAS to be gotten fired over this right?
LAK: Andreoff, Brown, Dowd, Gaborik, Mersch, Nolan, Purcell, Shore,[McNabb]
he, like Engelland, played 20 mins a night and was the odd man out in LA - with Forbort stepping up, the top 4 was sorted out, they had enough cap trouble and I doubt they wanted to afford his due raise if they don't see him in their top 4. good pick, especially since all the other options would be third liners at best.
MIN: [Haula], Staal
another team that hamstrung itself with the bad decision of their past - they had to protect Pominville, Koivu and Parise. Scandella and Dumba were exempt from being picked and Vegas went with the younger Haula. would Vegas have went after Scandella had he been available? doubtful and it would have been the wrong decision for them anyway. if anything, Minnesota weakened their own case by including him in the agreement. their whole situation was messed up.
MTL: Carr, de la Rose, Mitchell, Davidson, [Emelin], Nesterov
immediately flipped for assetsm this was probably the best they could do. one could argue de la Rose is decent on a scoring third line, but those type of players are plentiful.
NSH: Aberg, [Neal], Wilson, Watson, Hunt
they knew what they were getting when they protected Järnkrok over Neal. had it gone the other way, how far fetched would it be to predict a similar trajectory for Järnkrok like the one Karlsson and Haula took? either way, NSH had plenty opportunity to strike a side deal to go 7+3 and keep them from picking Ekholm. they had an intact teamand could have spared a prospect or pick, but they chose this route.
NJD: Bennett, Cammalleri, Harper, Smith-Pelly, Helgeson, Lovejoy, [Merrill], Prout, Kinkaid, Josefson
Vegas stocked up on mediocre defensemen, hoping they'd be a hot commodity.. they weren't. he was a part time NHLer, but given their injury troubles in goal, they might've been happier picking Kinkaid.
NYI: [Jean-François Bérubé]
one could argue the isles made it out well, giving up a depth G and a 1st rounder for keeping their roster intact in spite of having to protect Ladd and dumping Grabovskis contract. Nelson and Bailey would have been decet alternatives, but this way they got Brannström for the future.
NYR: Grabner, [Lindberg], Raanta, Pirri
Vegas arguably missed here - Grabner was a sought after commodity after he repeated his 2016/2017 success, Raanta became a starter and Lindberg only a part time NHLer with limited impact.
OTT: [Methot], Da Costa, Burrows, Pyatt, Varone, Wingels, Jokipakka, Claesson, Borowiecki, Filatov
their hands were bound by Phaneufs NMC (they didn't ask him to waive though IIRC?) had he been available.. they probably would have passed. Methot was immediately flipped for futures too, so no NHL impact either way.
PHI: [Bellemare], Raffl, Read, Weise, Del Zotto, Mason, Neuvirth
rather unexpected, they went for the 4th liner instead of the 3rd liners and.. both their starter and backup. even for a 4th line center, there were probably better options out there - this is one of the moves that made many suspicious after ,especially since there was no side deal. even del Zotto would have been a more valuable pick probably.
PIT: [Fleury]
what a home run. Pittsburgh committed to their young goaltender. Fleurys future with the team was probably doubtful anyway, and they even ensured they'd pick him with a second rounder, even though none of the other options would have hurt the Pens too much. this just looks so odd to me.
SJS: Boedker, Marleau, Ward, Thornton, deMelo, Martin,[Schlemko], Sateri, Dillon
is that just me? Schlemko was flipped for a small futures return. I would've picked Boedker every day of the week.
STL: Jaskin, Lehtera, Paajarvi, [Perron], Rattie, Gunnarsson, Hutton
if they protect Perron over Reaves, does Vegas go for Reaves? my guess is no, they take Gunnarsson or Hutton. this way, they're presented a no brainer which paid out great for them (I mean STL got Klim Kostin back for Reaves, but they also could've used a Perron at his best..)
TBL: [Garrison]
such a complete team - they could afford to lose future assets in order to get Garrisons contract off the books. the alternatives weren't great at the time - Gourde hadn't broken out yet. Vermin, Koekkoek, Paquette and Dumon would have been options too. Garrison played a diminishing role.
TOR: [Leipsic], Reichel, Hunwick, Marchenko, Boyle
nothing exciting being offered by the leafs here. Leipsic skated less than 12 minutes a night, but was still the best option.
VAN: Miller, [Sbisa}
they exposed mainly AHL depth and weren't too sad about losing Sbisa IIRC. he skated just 30 games, albeit scoring 14 points and almost 20 mins a night.
WSH: Oshie, Grubauer, Schmidt]
oof. Oshie was about to hit UFA status and WSH tactically used that against Vegas. so they walked that line successfully, but decided to not run with it. Grubauer could have been their pick. consider the following: 8 skaters, Backström, Burakovsky, Kuznetsov, Ovechkin, Carlson, Niskanen, Orlov, Schmidt. top 4, top 6 remain intact, lose Grubauer (gone after this year), Eller, Johansson (lost as cap casualty under market value anyway), Wilson. WSH dug that hole themselfes imo - especially since they want to win, they might as well have struck a side deal. Schmidt lead VGK in ice time by 2 minutes/game.
WPG: [Thorburn]
Thorburn didn't sign with Vegas. i'll be honest, I have no idea whom they were protecting from being picked. Dano? Enström? either way, VGK will enjoy the pick in the future.
2.3 Trades in the aftermath and Free Agents
In addition to immediately flipping Methot, Schlemko, Emelin and van Riemsdyk, pushing around Krüger and trading for Kolesar (prospect with no NHL impact), they picked up the following free agents:
Brad Hunt, Vadim Shipachyov, Tomas Hyka, Stefan Matteau, Paul Thompson, T.J. Tynan, Chis Casto, Maxime Lagacé, Oscar Dansk. those are AHL signings, failures (Shipachyov) or goalies that saw their 5 games during the goalie injury carousel last year. only Brad Hunt played more than 10 games in the regular season (Hyka has 10). they picked up Tatar and Reaves at the deadline and earlier Zachary Leslie, Philip Holm and Tobias Lindberg (0 combined NHL games)
3. RECEPTION
Now those were a lot of words for stuff you already knew. So what have we learned? no free agents made a major impact. the trades they made were undoing expansion draft decisions (e.g. Leipsic, Pickard et al). many expansion draft decisions didn't have a NHL impact anyway or were questionable from the start. I would argue that many teams made on this site looked better on paper than the team that was assembled in the draft. there was confusion about the whole Shipachyov situation. they didn't have a first line center. the few good things that happened to them at the draft were completely on the respective teams ([4], Columbus, St. Louis), preventable (Washington, Boston), caused by earlier mismanagement (Minnesota) or ill fate (Pittsburgh, Nashville)
Not a single sports writer had them making an impact in the league (examples proving otherwise are welcome). no single blogger, no single post on this site.
Still, suddenly arose the sentiment that the league just handed them their success because of the 500M$ fee. I don't know if anyone here perpetrates these views, but could anyone point me to what the hell I am missing? thanks for reading and I'd love to hear your opinions on this.
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