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[Speculation] Las Vegas is going to have a better team than the Canucks...


bloodycanuckleheads

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9 hours ago, Gollumpus said:

Without having read anything above my current post (which may have touched on my point here), I took a look at the Knights' stats for Games Played. They really don't seem to have lost a lot of time from their starting roster. While they are playing well (and good on them for their success), I have doubts that they would be anywhere close to their current level of success if they had anywhere near the same amount of games lost due to injury as do the Canucks.

 

                                                             regards,  G.

They were playing their 5th string goalie for a bit 

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Well, no offense, but longer term I don't buy the Vegas Knights holding this level of consistency.  Karlsson as you're long term #1 scoring option, not likely.  He's having a fine season and may very well settle into becoming a solid legitimate number two center line option.  I would easily take Boeser over any rostered forward on the Knights.  In addition, on the back end they've got the chance to develop something special on the heels of Theodore.  They will make the playoffs and may win a round.  I will take our prospect pool as well over there's.  They're a great story and a very strong addition to the NHL.  I'm not worried about the "feel good NHL story".

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On 15/06/2017 at 6:50 PM, IBatch said:

You are right...and possibly not even as right as you know.  Almost all the forwards they pick when placed in a first line role with more power play time will see a ten-twenty point jump.  Take Weiss for example.  A career third liner put in the first line role in Florida and his production jumped twenty points.  When he went to Detroit and back to a secondary scoring role his production went back to his career norm.

 

The top six will all likely benifit and see a boost over their career norms.  Same with whomever they choose to quarterback the PP.

 

Said it earlier, ARI and Vancouver will likely be chasing Vegas right off the hop.  

 

One thing they won't be able to duplicate is their prospect pool, which is a big reason the league is making it easier for them.  Columbus is just now reaching perrenial playoff status and only made twice, winning all of one game, this year.  ATL - WNP is just as bad, and they had Kovalchuk, Heatley and Hossa early, and like CLB is just reaching respectability now.  It shouldn't take a team nearly two decades to challenge for a cup, and having zero prospects is their biggest hurdle.

 

So yes, they will have a better team than us, and probably five or six other organizations, but it's unlikely to be sustainable, they enter the league in full rebuild mode with little to work with other than the draft.

 

Even better than I thought... likely better than anyone else in the league?  Who would have predicted that.

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14 hours ago, Samgagner'sface said:

They were playing their 5th string goalie for a bit 

True enough. How many games lost do they have for their d-men or forwards? It seems to be they have been a bit lucky in that regard.

 

                                                                                               regards,  G.

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Not really a surprise that LV has a good team when you stop and think about it. 

They were able to pick 30 slightly above average players. That alone left them with a whole team of second and third line players as well as second and third pairing defence. Plus depth. 

Now throw in trades and free agents plus high picks. 

Pretty much a no brainer. 

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7 hours ago, Gollumpus said:

True enough. How many games lost do they have for their d-men or forwards? It seems to be they have been a bit lucky in that regard.

 

                                                                                               regards,  G.

I suppose they have. It's a strange collection of players there, though. There isn't really anyone on the team they couldn't afford to lose. We lost Sutter, Bo and Tanev and we couldn't compete. I doubt it would be the same in Vegas. I think if they lost their 4 best players, their depth would just fill the holes. They have NHL quality  depth at every position because of how things played out in the expansion draft, and that's something we unfortunately lack. It's a unique situation, no real stars but no weak links anywhere. I would have thought poor or inexperienced goaltending would have brought them down before losing guys like Neal or karlsson to injury. 

 

 

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On 6/15/2017 at 2:34 PM, bloodycanuckleheads said:

Vegas is going to be a lot better than anyone realizes.

 

Let's just take a look back at what happened last expansion draft and what we can expect this time...

 

In 2000, CBJ and the Wild entered the league.  In that expansion draft, teams were allowed to protect either:  one goaltender, five defensemen, and nine forwards OR two goaltenders, three defensemen, and seven forwards.  With two expansion teams fighting for players, they were choosing either the 15th or 16th best player from each team (if that team chose the 1st option) or the 13th or 14th best player (if the team chose the second).

 

Today, the rules are different.  They favor the expansion team much more than they did in the past (what a surprise, the big-market city gets a MUCH better initial-team than the smaller market cities).  It's either:  seven forwards, three defencemen and one goaltender OR eight skaters and one goaltender.  And, there's no 2nd expansion team competing for picks.  Oh yeah, and the last expansion teams only got to choose from 26 other teams.  This year, it'll be 30.  So, Vegas wins again.  Vegas will be choosing the 12th best player from each team - or the 10th best.  Having a team full of 10's and 12's is A HELL OF A LOT better than a smaller team full of 15 and 16's like the Wild and Columbus got!

 

So, how did those teams do?  Did the expansion draft screw those teams for years?  Yes, kind of.  But, nowhere near as bad as you'd expect.  For instance, NEITHER TEAM was in the bottom-5 their first season!  In their history, the Wild have only had 3 seasons where they lost more games than they won (ignoring OTL's), and one of those was 36:35.  The horrible expansion rules were still good enough for them to assemble a decent team right off the bat.

 

Today's rules are far, far better (for the expansion club).  

 

Now, here's the disgusting part for Canucks fans...  

 

Vegas will, almost surely, have a considerably better team than us!

 

Here are a couple of the latest mock drafts:

 

http://www.fiveforhowling.com/2017/6/15/15778402/vegas-golden-knights-mock-expansion-draft-five-for-howling-take

 

https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2017/sports/nhl-expansion-mock-draft-vegas-golden-knights/

 

So, let's just compare our roster to what Vegas will have...

 

 

GOALTENDER:

 

Canucks:
2.63 and 0.910 - Markstrom
Unknown Backup or Starter

 

Vegas:
2.56 and 0.924 - Fleury
2.05 and 0.926 - Grubauer
2.27 and 0.922 - Raanta

Uh oh...

 


DEFENSE:

 

Canucks:
21pts - Edler
10 - Tanev
24 - Stecher
19 - Hutton
6 - Gudbranson
--------------
13 - Sbisa (Gone)
9 - Tryamkin (Gone)

 

Vegas:
25pts - de Haan

24 - Vatanen (if they don't take Silfverberg)
18 - Del Zotto
13 - Scandella
16 - van Riemsdyk
13 - Sbisa
13 - Miller
7 - Marincin
0 - Reinhart (4th overall)
and lots of other choices!

Uh oh!...

 


FORWARDS:

 

Canucks:
51pts - Sedin
44 - Sedin
24 - Eriksson
52 - Horvat
35 - Baertschi
5 - Boeser
32 - Granlund
34 - Sutter
8 - Megna
9 - Skille
8 - Chaput
5 - Gaunce
3 - Goldobin
Unknown signings/trades/pickups to fill out the roster
------------
20 - Burrows (Gone)
13 - Hansen (Gone)

 

Vegas:
49pts - Silfverberg
43 - Kane

40 - Grabner (if they don't take Raanta)

40 - Stempniak

31 - Jarnkrok

25 - Karlsson
23 - Andrighetto
28 - Namestnikov
26 - Bennett
36 - Brown
29 - Lowry
26 - Boedker
20 - Burrows
16 - Kuhnhackl
14 - Glendening
30 - Strome (if they don't take de Haan)
15 - Brodziak
17 - McGinn

 

And, we haven't even gotten to all the UFA's they can pick up, all the deals they can make to exempt certain players, and all the trades they can make with all their new assets.  Of course, we haven't gotten into salary-cap and spending issues and there will be a lot of wheeling and dealing over the next week, so who knows who is actually going to be exposed and selected.  But, still...

 

What an utter load of crap!  Before they even play their first game, Vegas is almost surely going to have a team that's CONSIDERABLY better than ours!  Unless they screw-up unimagineably, their goaltending will be an order-of-magnitude better than us (even if we pick up a great goalie this summer or re-sign Miller).  Their forwards don't have the top-end talent (of course, neither does our team), but as a group, they are considerably better.  And, their defense is arguably similar, if not better. 

 

Oh, and notice that I only took one player per team.  I didn't cherry-pick and list a bunch of players Vegas couldn't possibly assemble all together.  And, you could probably assemble a much better team than I did.  I was just picking players from each team off the top of my head (to show you guys how unbelievably disgusting this is going to be).

 

Look at the team Vegas can assemble compared to the Canucks - it's utterly ridiculous!  There's no way in hell they should be that much better than us before they've even played their first game.  Not that they're going to be good, but they aren't going to be fighting us for top spot in the 2018 draft lottery either!

They will finish with more points but they are not a better team.   They are an assemblage of decent players given the massive leg up given from the expansion draft with rules never before seen in NHL but they need a LOT of work to become a long-term team and have a prospect pool that is deeper than one draft.   

 

So, Canucks were destined to be a non-playoff team this year and no one would have argued that without some rosy glasses.   Vegas has been a nice surprise but far from a shock as on paper, quite a nice line up and a SC winning goaltender.   

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On 1/23/2018 at 12:04 PM, Hairy Kneel said:

LV has 66 points and we have 42

lmao

I don't think that is a massive surprise.   IF you really want to laugh your assets off, LV has 66 points and Edmonton has 45 given they (Edmonton) were consensus picks by many "experts" to be SCF from the west.   

 

Canucks were never picked to be much higher than they have been to date.

 

Edmonton?  LMAO.

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  • 3 months later...

I find it interesting that OP was correct that they would be better than the Canucks, but with a vastly different team than what they had expected based on the players that were made available to Vegas.  Props to the management team over there.

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On 6/15/2017 at 11:28 PM, -AJ- said:

I sincerely expect them to be better than bottom three. I'd guess they'll have a better roster than us for sure, but they'll need to gel first. Early on, they'll be at about our level, but as the season progresses, they might improve and surprise a lot of people. I wouldn't even be surprised to see them break out of the bottom five.

At least I was closer than many?

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