drummer4now

Goaltending.

Look at the Canucks as an example of how they’re a threat in this postseason.

It’s not the whole answer...but it clearly starts from there.

They got NHL management right away with McPhee as GM and Gallant as Coach.

And a lot of teams for various reasons made trades with Vegas prior to the expansion draft that gave Vegas extra pieces. If a team's 3 best expansion eligible unprotected players were A, B, and C, many teams traded 'C' to Vegas with the promise that Vegas would not take A. This just resulted in Vegas getting the 'B' and 'C' player from a couple of teams. 

Just like any type of draft, if you get more pieces, the chances are higher you'll strike gold

In earlier expansions, the existing teams gave up the extreme low end of their rosters, so teams like Vancouver, Buffalo, Washington, et cetera got the literal scrapings of the bottom of the barrel and were crap teams for a long time. Vegas had access to the 4th best d-men and the seventh or eighth best forwards from each team. BIG difference. Then there were GMs like Dale Tallon who gave up Reilly Smith AND Jonathan Marchessault, who are arguably better than 7th or 8th best forwards, so he could keep four defencemen. Seattle will have a similar draft, though GMs will probably be a little smarter about who they offer Seattle as sweeteners to take or not take certain players.