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


bloodycanuckleheads

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IMO it is a waste of time/idle speculation to make any proclamation of how good Vegas will be- until the protected lists are actually published.

Then you can build a cap compliant 30 man team and decide if they will be better than the Canucks.

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11 minutes ago, gurn said:

IMO it is a waste of time/idle speculation to make any proclamation of how good Vegas will be- until the protected lists are actually published.

Then you can build a cap compliant 30 man team and decide if they will be better than the Canucks.

Being the bottom of the league for a couple more years is a must. I would just like to see a couple of moves to add more youth. I will be happy if there is something to look forward to.

 

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52 minutes ago, canuktravella said:

i love how this poster assumes that vegas wil get all these good players no they wont teams will trade  a player elsewhere like silverberg before they give him up its common sense   and ya im hoping vegas eats sutters contract for us  frees up 4.4 mill in space  just leave him unprotected we can use the space for younsters and free agents 

Title is very misleading,  it's his own speculation, not a knowledgeable hockey pundit 

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This draft is really, super important in terms of who will be the first team to make a run in the playoffs between us and Vegas.

If we end up with a better player than them at 5 and 33, we should be able to stay ahead of them in the standings during our next window. As predicted we should have a better pick than them the next couple years as well, however with the lottery things can change quick.

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I ran the Vegas build a team sim over at TSN...

 

Vegas is gonna have a legit d and be solid in nets to push for a playoff spot.

 

Up front they are gonna have guys like Stepan, Killorn, Jenner, JVR, Ennis, Eaves,Stempniak, just to name a few

 

On d Mike Green, Calvin de Haan, Jared Spurgeon, Nathan Beaulieu, Jamie Oleskiak, Justin Schultz, Robert Bortuzzo and Paul Postma and party boy Michael Del Zotto.

 

That's stacked....

 

Fleury and Grubauer in the pipes with Raanta.

 

Canucks are gonna suck Vegas will make the playoffs before Vancouver ever will.

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3 hours ago, bloodycanuckleheads said:

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

W/e. :)

 

If they are good(ish), then it wouldn't be the first time that an expansion team ended the season ahead of an existing franchise. In 70-71 the Canucks ended up ahead of Detroit and California. Up until around the mid-point of the season the Canucks were a middle of the pack team... and then the injuries happened. As others have already noted, a lack of depth doomed the Canucks to finish out of the playoffs.

 

This being said, if the Knights do finish ahead of the Canucks then that's one fewer team about which the tanking crowd has to be concerned.

 

                                                                            regards,  G.

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4 hours ago, 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!

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.

 

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26 minutes ago, Chip Kelly said:

I ran the Vegas build a team sim over at TSN...

 

Vegas is gonna have a legit d and be solid in nets to push for a playoff spot.

 

Up front they are gonna have guys like Stepan, Killorn, Jenner, JVR, Ennis, Eaves,Stempniak, just to name a few

 

On d Mike Green, Calvin de Haan, Jared Spurgeon, Nathan Beaulieu, Jamie Oleskiak, Justin Schultz, Robert Bortuzzo and Paul Postma and party boy Michael Del Zotto.

 

That's stacked....

 

Fleury and Grubauer in the pipes with Raanta.

 

Canucks are gonna suck Vegas will make the playoffs before Vancouver ever will.

You think PIT won't retain Shultz after the role he played this season replacing Letang?  I wouldn't expose him over anyone but Letang and possibly Maata.

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1 minute ago, IBatch said:

You think PIT won't retain Shultz after the role he played this season replacing Letang?  I wouldn't expose him over anyone but Letang and possibly Maata.

Can't pick two players from the same team - i.e. Fleury and Schultz is not an option.

 

A few months back Rutherford said that he is considering protecting 8 skaters.   Letang, Maatta, Schultz and Dumoulin + Crosby, Malkin, Kessel and possibly Hornqvist + Murray.

 

 

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vegas really has to decide on their plan

do they want to be a 1 or 2 year wonder..  draft well in the expansion draft

and keep all those players

and perform as a maybe playoff team contender

or do they want to stock a farm system and look to be a real team in 5 years or more

if they do not trade away veteran assets now to supply the future

they will become a terrible team really fast

they presently have the worst young talent pool because they have none

 

i think mcphee has a longer term vision

the first couple of years an expansion team will get  a pass from their fan base anyway

and i see him trying to build for longer term success

 

so likely vegas will trade away a lot of veteran talent it drafts

and end up being a bottom feeding team

better than the canucks or not ? who really cares

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I remember when San Jose came into the league and sucked so bad for years. Ottawa too. Those were banked 2 point games. That's how expansion should be. Pay your dues. Now it aligns with the entitlement generation.

Yeah, Canucks are on pace to suck next year, but I'll still root for them. It's been such a bad year, even our own message board has been crapping out / disappearing. How I miss 2011.

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28 minutes ago, coastal.view said:

vegas really has to decide on their plan

do they want to be a 1 or 2 year wonder..  draft well in the expansion draft

and keep all those players

and perform as a maybe playoff team contender

or do they want to stock a farm system and look to be a real team in 5 years or more

if they do not trade away veteran assets now to supply the future

they will become a terrible team really fast

they presently have the worst young talent pool because they have none

 

i think mcphee has a longer term vision

the first couple of years an expansion team will get  a pass from their fan base anyway

and i see him trying to build for longer term success

 

so likely vegas will trade away a lot of veteran talent it drafts

and end up being a bottom feeding team

better than the canucks or not ? who really cares

That's what I would do. Snag as many good deal tweeners and vets in the expansion draft.. stay away from bad contracts and sell em off at the deadlines while your young players develop.

 

If McPhee isn't planning on doing that then he shouldn't be a GM

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