The Vegas Golden Knights making the Stanley Cup Final in their first year of existence is, bar none, the most remarkable long-shot achievement in the history of American professional sports.
Yet for many NHL fans, the reaction since the Golden Knights' series-clinching victory Sunday over the Winnipeg Jets hasn't been to celebrate a feel-good, logic-defying story that is resonating beyond the usual niche hockey market. Instead, a sect of hockey die-hards, traditionalists and bitter fans of older expansion teams have whined.
They are whining because the expansion draft rules made it easier for Vegas to put a quality team on the ice this year than what the Nashville Predators and Atlanta Thrashers had to deal with in the late 1990s. They are whining because while teams in traditional hockey markets routinely evaluate players poorly, Vegas general manager George McPhee made savvy roster moves that resulted in a bunch of NHL journeymen all having career years. They are whining because Vegas’ new fan base hasn’t had to deal with the despair that sets in after years of losing.
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And to those complainers, I offer a simple message: So what?
Where is the sacred text declaring that when Golden Knights owner Bill Foley put up a $500 million expansion fee — money, by the way, that goes into the pockets of the other owners — that his team was obligated to be bad until some vague moment years in the future?
This is the NHL – a league that long ago tried to engineer competitive balance with the hardest salary cap in pro sports, designed to make rosters more even and ensure that smaller markets with smart general managers would have just as much chance to acquire stars as the New York Rangers and Toronto Maple Leafs.
This is the NHL – a league with a relatively small, niche fan base that struggles for oxygen against the NBA during the playoffs despite routinely having more unpredictable, competitive series.
This is the NHL – a product that isn’t always an easy sell in new markets, but promises that once people get hooked, they’re hooked for life.
And guess what? The entertainment capital of the U.S. is now a bona fide hockey town, which is unquestionably better business for the NHL given the recent history of expansion teams.
The Thrashers didn’t make the playoffs until Year 7 of their existence (eight if you include the 2004-05 lockout), at which point the chronic losing and ownership instability had already worn down its fan base to the point where it was vulnerable to being moved to Winnipeg four years later.
Before the Predators became the hottest ticket in Music City, they were in extreme danger of being moved to Hamilton, Ontario.
In 2012-13, the Columbus Blue Jackets sold a league-low 80.3% of their tickets. After missing the playoffs 11 of their first 12 seasons, who could blame the fans for losing interest?
Given the choice between that tortured expansion experience and what’s currently happening in Vegas, the NHL would choose the latter every single time. But even then, it’s worth remembering that this level of success was a total accident.
Yes, the NHL made it easier for Vegas to construct a competitive roster than previous expansion teams. The rules forced other teams into some tough choices, leaving a handful of very good, established players available in the expansion draft such as Pittsburgh goaltender Marc-Andre Fleury and Nashville forward James Neal. Other teams chose to cut side deals, sending players or draft picks to Vegas in exchange for an agreement on which unprotected players the Knights would stay away from.
And even then, Vegas was still picked to finish in the bottom three of the NHL by pretty much every expert. If you had asked the league’s 30 general managers if they would trade rosters with the Golden Knights at the start of the season, it’s doubtful more than one or two would say yes.
But from the very beginning of the season, when the team won its first-ever game at Dallas just five days after the Las Vegas shooting that killed 58 people, then came back for a highly emotional home opener, there has been something special about this group.
So instead of criticizing other teams for bad personnel decisions or claiming that the league “gifted” Vegas a ready-made winner why not just enjoy the unique, cool thing that’s happening here?
Sure, Vegas fans might be the NHL’s nouveau riche, but don’t tell 43-goal scorer William Karlsson, whom two NHL franchises disposed of and had never scored more than 25 points in a season before this year, that he hasn’t paid his dues.
Perhaps you could say that this collection of other team’s spare parts making a Stanley Cup Final is an accident of history. But if hockey fans truly care about making their sport more popular, they should consider it a happy accident.
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