Don’t Call Vegas Lucky

In one of the most surprising sports stories in recent memory, the Vegas Golden Knights will host Game One of the Stanley Cup Finals on Monday.  I’ll say it again.  The Vegas Golden Knights.  A built-from-scratch, first-year expansion team.  A team whose preseason odds to win the Stanley Cup were 500 to 1 will be four wins away from the Stanley Cup, and they will have home-ice advantage.

Making the Finals is an impressive accomplishment in and of itself,[1] [2] but the path they’ve taken is even more impressive.  They didn’t squeak into the playoffs.  They weren’t one of those “good bad teams” who had a losing record but made it because there were more playoff spots than deserving teams.  Nope.  Not only did they have a winning record — the first Big Four[3] expansion team to do so — but they won their division.  (The only other time a built-from-scratch first-year expansion team won its division, it was a division made up solely of expansion teams.[4])  They’ve only played 15 playoff games so far, winning 12.  They have a chance to win the Stanley Cup while playing less than 20 playoff games.  Since the playoffs expanded to four best-of-seven rounds, that has happened only once: 1988, and that Edmonton Oilers team was one of the greatest ever.  How did Vegas do this?  What are the reasons for their success?

This was a perfect year to expand.  Why?  For one, the league is in the midst of a talent boom.  There are more elite-to-franchise-level players in the league right now than there have been in decades.[5]  Consequently, the talent runs deep.  In the expansion draft, each team was only allowed two protection options.  Option A was to protect seven forwards, three defensemen, and a goalie.  Option B was to protect a goalie and eight skaters, regardless of position.  Vegas had to pick one player from each team.  Even though all first-and-second-year players were ineligible to be picked, there were still a large number of outstanding players available.  Since Vegas was the only expansion team, they could pick the one unprotected player that they truly wanted from each of the other teams without having to worry about another expansion team taking him first.

 

Another reason that this was the perfect year to expand was Matt Murray’s rise to stardom.  Pittsburgh had two Hall-of-Fame caliber goalies — Murray and Marc-Andre Fleury — on their roster, and they could only keep one.  Since Murray is nine-and-a-half years younger than Fleury, they kept Murray and let Fleury go to Vegas.  Has any other expansion team been able to start its existence with a still-in-his-prime goalie of Fleury’s caliber?  The closest comparison I could find was John Vanbiesbrouck going to the Florida Panthers in 1993, but Beezer was not quite at the level of Fleury, and Fleury’s postseason success was far greater.  So, to answer that question, no.

This being a perfect year to expand doesn’t entirely explain Vegas’ success, though.  SOMEBODY had to be making the hockey decisions.  That person is General Manager George McPhee.  McPhee knows what he’s doing – he was the general manager that built most of the Washington Capitals’ current roster.  McPhee has made wise selections during his tenure in Vegas thus far.  For example, the Caps’ nemesis during their current string of playoff appearances has consistently been Marc-Andre Fleury.  Who was the Golden Knights’ first choice in the Expansion Draft?  Fleury.

McPhee also had to assemble a solid coaching staff.  He wisely brought in Gerard Gallant, who is the prohibitive favorite to win the Jack Adams Award as coach of the year.  Gallant has seen success at every level, winning the Memorial Cup during his tenure as head coach of the Saint John Sea Dogs of the QMJHL.  In the NHL, he took over an absolute disaster of a team when he stepped in to coach the Columbus Blue Jackets, and they showed improvement during his tenure.  During his stint behind the bench of the Florida Panthers, he coached the team to a division title in 2015-16 after a sixth-place finish the previous season.  Florida canned him 22 games into the 2016-17 season, and Vegas capitalized on his availability a few short months later.

Gallant has done a tremendous job getting the best out of this roster of cast-offs.  Remember – each one of these players was left unprotected in favor of several others – either one other goalie or three to seven other skaters.  In some cases, the player was traded to Vegas in order to keep Vegas from taking someone else on that team.  What a chip to put on a player’s shoulder!  Gallant took advantage of his players having something to prove, and the result has been an outstanding season and an even-more-outstanding playoff run.

The future looks bright for the Golden Knights.  This team is young – only a small handful the players are even in their 30s.  Their arena is state-of-the-art.  Their fans are tremendously supportive – especially because it’s currently the only pro sports franchise in town.  They play in a high-demand free agency destination.  Why?  Great winter climate, no state income tax, and the fact that the players they sign GET TO LIVE IN LAS VEGAS.

As the puck drops tonight, remember that it takes a lot more than luck to make a run to the Stanley Cup Finals.  Vegas did have some breaks go their way, but, more importantly, they were in a position to take advantage of said breaks because they are well-managed and well-coached.  This is going to be quite a series.  I can’t wait!

[1] I should know.  My favorite team is one of only four in the whole league who has never made it to the Finals.

[2] After writing footnote number one, I cringed as I realized that one of the other three teams was created in 1999 and the other two were created in 2000.

[3] If you’re wondering who the Big Four are, they are the four largest North American professional sports leagues: MLB, the NFL, the NHL, and the NBA.  Revenue and player salaries in each of these leagues are insanely higher than the other North American pro leagues.

[4] The Philadelphia Flyers won the all-expansion NHL West Division in 1967-68 but did so with a losing record.  Five of the six teams in the East Division finished with a better record than the Flyers.

[5] None of today’s players are on par with Gretzky or Lemieux, but today’s elite-level guys are certainly in the next tier.