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The Expansion Knight has Fallen

It’s finally over. The most absurd start for any expansion franchise in all of sports – the Golden Knights – has finally come to a close. Earlier this week the Vegas Golden Knights were officially eliminated from playoff contention, marking the first time in team history that they failed to make the postseason. And it’s about damn time.

Call me old fashioned. Call me bitter. Call me whatever you’d like, but I believe that an expansion team should have a hard road to climb. They shouldn’t be given a playoff team the first season. The first season a team exists they’ll draw in fans because they’re new and exciting. Going to the game the first couple seasons a team exists is supposed to be an event – you don’t worry about the result of the game, you go for the excitement of the experience. After the first couple of seasons the shine of something new has worn off and you expect the team to show improvement and maybe then show some signs towards being a playoff team – and that’s if the front office does it’s job well.

That’s not at all what we got with the Vegas Golden Knights’ expansion draft (and subsequently the Seattle Kraken – but they didn’t hit the timing jackpot the same way the Knights did). Before the Knights came into the league it had been 17 years since the last time the NHL had an expansion draft. That one had two teams – Minnesota and Columbus. But apart from the fact that they were adding two teams, there were significantly different rules for the 2000 draft than the 2017 draft. The 2000 draft would allow teams to protect either 12 or 14 players, depending on which route a team wanted to take. Most importantly though, it gave teams an option to protect two goalies if they so desired. For the 2017 draft though Gary Bettman decided that wasn’t good enough. To make teams be competitive right away they reduced the number of players that teams could protect, either 9 or 11 players. Neither of those options though would allow teams to protect two goalies.

The rules to restrict teams from protecting two goalies was the first gift to the Vegas Golden Knights. The Penguins were loaded with two all-star caliber goalies – so they were forced to give one of them up. That’s how Marc-Andre Fleury ended up in the desert. Apart from that though, the route to protect more players was still protecting fewer players than the 2000 option that would have saved two goalies. The point is, the NHL went too far on this draft – especially at the longest gap in expansion drafts since the first one in 1967. The front offices seemed to have learned a bit to protect players for the Seattle expansion draft, but the rules are still too generous in my opinion. The NHL could have gone in a nice incremental change on the rules – limiting the number of protected players by 1 player, maybe 2 if they were really trying to make a change, but they went as far as possible. And the Vegas Golden Knights benefited.

Even though the Knights were given this crazy expansion draft gift – they didn’t squander it. They made it to the playoffs each of their first four seasons, were eliminated in the semi-finals twice, and made it to the Stanley Cup finals once. By all accounts they made the most of what was given to them. But they couldn’t build for long term success. The NHL operates on a very young entry draft – 18-20 years old for North American amateur players. At the oldest these players would be 25 years old right now. But in only 4 years it’s hard to build and develop young talent to the point to refill a playoff roster. So now we’re getting a fallout from their success. If the Knights don’t make the playoffs the next few years and even mix in a terrible season in there I’d expect the fans to disappear. The fan base is one built on success, not one built on the team and community.

That’s why we hate the Golden Knights. They didn’t have to struggle to get the success. There were never any lean years. The success they had, while impressive, feels cheap and handed to them. Basically it was a video game with all the cheat codes unlocked – a fun thing to do for about a day, or in the Knights timeline a season, but it doesn’t keep your interest. If you’re playing against your friends and you have the cheat codes while they don’t, they’ll resent you and stop playing. That’s the feeling from all fans. Specifically from division foes – as was displayed on the San Jose Sharks scoreboard the other night.

FANS UNITE! CELEBRATE! KEEP THE HOCKEY ENERGY KICKING! NOW IMBIBE GENEROUSLY, HONOR THE SHARKS!

https://sports.yahoo.com/sharks-jumbotron-posts-hidden-nsfw-205502151.html

Every hockey fan felt the same way. Even if you’re not a shark fan, it’s a message we all could get behind. Hopefully we won’t have to worry about another expansion draft for a while. But if we do, hopefully we won’t have to deal with another cheat code draft like the Knights got in 2017 and the Kraken got in 2021.